


Warrior's Blues

by ahh_fuck, Stressedspidergirl



Series: Warrior's Blues [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Autistic Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Blood, Blood and Injury, Broken Families, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Child Abuse Scars, Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friendship, Gay Bar, Gay Character, Geralt is a soldier modern AU, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Self-Esteem Issues, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Is Not a Witcher, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is a Mess, Homophobia, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Jaskier is a professor, Jaskier runs a bar, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Blood, Military Backstory, Military Homophobia, Multi, Pansexual Character, Past Child Abuse, Past Death of Original Character (implied), Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Relationships, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Smut, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Vesemir negative, gay bar au, polyamorous family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 101,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahh_fuck/pseuds/ahh_fuck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stressedspidergirl/pseuds/Stressedspidergirl
Summary: A modern AU set in 1995 where Geralt of Rivia is an ex soldier exiled from the army under Don't Ask Don't Tell, and Jaskier owns a gay bar. Geralt stumbles up the street when his truck breaks down, and into Jaskier's life. Hijinks ensue. This fic was created during Pride, and I have done my best to include real gay history in it. It deals with themes like loneliness, found family, being closeted, and coming out.  I have done a ton of research for this fic, which has been a blast. I have even interviewed a bouncer from an actual gay bar for source material.A huge thanks to Stressedspidergirl, who not only nudged me into writing this fic, but has been a constant source of inspiration, challenger, and wonderful co-creator. It would not be the same fic without you, thank you!! You're amazing!!Please note that this story can be pretty intense at times, especially in later chapters. It deals with (internalized) homophobia, depression, trauma, broken families, AIDS, and a whole host of other topics that can be uncomfortable or triggering. There is also, however, fluff, deep family bonds, humor, and smut ahead. Enjoy!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Warrior's Blues [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801993
Comments: 114
Kudos: 172
Collections: Geraskier, Geraskier Pride Week 2020, The Witcher(Geralt/Jaskier), geraskier





	1. Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The road is shimmering with heat haze. Stretching before him long into the distance, a line of cars clots the highway. Leaving the military base had proved simple, but it was turning out to be the only simple thing about his day. His ancient truck growls and rumbles in the heat, beginning to give off a warning whine as it inches along the blacktop. His fingers alternately clutch and tap at the steering wheel, jaw working as he desperately scans for a way to get off of the highway before the damn thing breaks down altogether.

He hasn’t driven it in years; Hadn’t honestly expected to see it again so soon, much less be forced into the damn thing over the course of a few hours. As the truck whines and sputters up the road, he cranes his neck, trying to see up ahead. Finally, just as the engine is beginning to well and truly overheat at the near-idle pace he’s been forced to keep it at, he sees an exit up ahead. He hesitates for a moment. After a lifetime of military service, the prospect of breaking traffic laws still gives him pause. 

But. 

That is no longer a factor. The fat sheaf of papers sits in the cab behind him, rustling in the blasting heat coming out of the blowers he is running in a desperate attempt to keep the damn truck going for just a few more miles. Dishonorable discharge. Might as well be dead, as far as society is concerned. 

Fuck it. 

A determined expression settles over his face, and he shifts the truck into gear. It coughs, gives a roar, and he pulls haltingly out into the breakdown lane. Sweat drips down his cheeks in the soggy, relentless heat as he cranes his neck again, scanning the road for police officers one last time. Seeing none, he guns the engine, the truck bucking into motion at long last. He bowls his way up the breakdown lane, barrelling towards the exit, pulling onto it with a thump and a screech of tires, horns chorusing around him. Something about that causes his fraying temper to snap, and he sticks his middle finger out the window at the irritated drivers as he barges his way back into traffic. 

To be perfectly honest, off the exit is even worse than the highway. The cars are gridlocked as far as he can see. What the _fuck_ could have locked down the city like this? He growls in frustration, pulling back out of traffic and forcing his truck over a curb. It goes over it with a thump, starts rattling, coughs, and then bucks forward through a parking lot onto a side street. All he wants is to get to his damn storage unit, but it is all the way across the city and the main streets are proving to be impassable. The truck blessedly settles into a lower rumble as he drives along the narrow alleys and back streets of the city. It is cooler here, shaded with drooping maple trees that are limp and listless in the heat. Before long, he is hopelessly lost and his temper is spiraling out of control. 

When the truck finally dies on a hill not far from the center of the city, his boiling temper overflows. “FUCK!” he shouts, slamming his hand on the dash. Seething, he uses the slope of the hill to inch his truck into a parking space, cranks the emergency brake hard enough to nearly break the shaft, and bursts out of the truck.

He spins and wallops the trunk of a maple tree nearby with a closed fist, splitting the skin on his knuckles instantly. Snarling in pain and rage, he strikes it, again and again, until his hand is raw and bloody and his rage and grief are momentarily spent. Panting, he shakes the sweat from his eyes and wipes his undamaged hand over his face, smearing the sweat droplets up into his short cropped white hair. 

What now?

Staggering back from the tree, he turns and leans against his truck, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he tries to gather himself. The stinking heat gnaws at him, impairing his every attempt to form a coherent thought. His cheeks are red and hot, and he knows if he doesn’t find some sort of shelter soon he is going to become ill. Realizing he had better start moving no matter what, he turns to open the truck door. He might not have a plan, but he did know that he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by allowing dehydration or heat stroke to take him down. That meant finding water, a cool place to collect himself, and, with any luck, some kind of a damn map.

Reaching across the back seat, he grabs his camouflage print khaki backpack and pulls out a water bottle. It is mostly empty, but he drinks the last of it as he eyes the discharge papers. He doesn’t want the folder with him… but even worse, he doesn’t want the papers to be towed away if he isn’t able to return to his truck in time. He knew there was at least a chance they would find the truck after discovering he had been kicked off base. While he can’t bear to face them, not yet, he doesn’t want them worrying that he is dead. His body hums with tension as he looks at the papers, twisting the water bottle back and forth in his hands.

Finally, his shoulders set as he comes to a decision. He grabs them and stuffs them roughly into the bag, zips it, and flings it over his shoulder. Then he pats the truck apologetically, feeling obscurely guilty for losing his temper, turns, and begins to make his way downhill towards the heart of the little port city. He cradles his bloody hand close to his chest, keeping it above his heart, trying to keep the swelling from robbing him of its use altogether. As he walks away from the truck, away from his last clear means of returning to them, his heart sets up a gnawing ache in his chest.

It is some time before he exits the industrial district he has left his truck in, and as he does so, he feels a strange sensation in his stomach, in his bones. As he approaches the main street, the sensation resolves into a pounding bass rhythm that he feels more than hears. That is fine, he can handle the pain of it, but when he turns the next corner, he feels like he has walked into an absolute wall of color and sound. He freezes, eyes wide, as he takes in the sight before him.

Rainbow flags adorn every available surface. Children in nylon faerie wings chase each other screaming around a nearby fountain, and in the distance, a few streets away, a parade is in full swing. People of every possible description are out in the heat, dressed in glitter, dressed in leather, towering drag queens and tiny leather dykes mingling comfortably on the summer streets. His heart plunging, he suddenly feels desperately out of place in his sweaty green t-shirt and camouflage print pants. 

He is too hot, too overwhelmed, and too heartsick. His whole body feels raw with grief as he looks upon the scene. Everything he has lost is thrown into a mocking highlight, reminding him that all he has ever loved has been stripped away because of one fucking stupid mistake. The organization he has spent his entire life serving had rejected him for the very thing these people were celebrating, and seeing it is like slamming into a brick wall. The world whirls around him, heart rallying and heading for his throat now as a feeling of overwhelming despair and panic begins to overtake him. His eyes flutter shut and his adam’s apple bobs as he fights for control, fights for breath, the world fading from around him until there is only oppressive heat and the hammering of his heart. He clutches his injured hand against his chest and focuses on the weight of the sack on his back, trying to block out the spinning. It isn’t the first time that he has abandoned himself so shamefully. It likely will not be the last. 

Gradually, as time passes, the world begins to trickle back in. Glimmers of noise and color flit across his awareness, beginning to cohere into a solid impression once more. The sound of the nearby children laughing swims to him as if from underwater, followed by an arc of glittering light floating between his partially opened eyelids. As he tips his head forward and opens his eyes, it resolves into a huge pink and silver banner being dragged by laughing men a few streets up, floating in the air like a kite. He feels his chest spasm, and he finds himself stepping back unbidden. Then, blindly, he begins walking up the street that runs parallel to the parade, breath coming in short huffs and gasps. 

It would be impossible to tell how many blocks his feet have carried him before his mind starts to come back to him. He could have been miles from his truck, for all he knew. And at this point he couldn’t have said more about the little park than that it had had children in it, little winged fairies dancing in the noise and light. Disoriented, he lifts his head and looks up around him, trying to get his bearings. 

He drops his injured hand to his side as he scans the nearly empty street, feeling the heavy backpack shift on his back. His hand gives a slow, distant throb, barely felt in the depths of his daze. The street is scattered with wrappers and glittery garbage, feathers, fluttering bits of paper twisting slowly in the humid breeze. The parade has already passed by here, and the few remaining hangers-on are dispersing as he watches. He licks his dry lips, searching for familiar landmarks as he tries to orient himself. His concentration is broken by a piercing wolf-whistle from about a block and a half up the nearly empty street.

“Ouuuuwww!” A man howls joyously, and his attention snaps in that direction. In the distance he can see someone leaning against one of the ubiquitous red brick storefronts that line the old city streets. Turning, he heads towards him, the only thing that currently seems real in the blurred landscape around him. As he gets closer, he sees that the tall man is grinning hugely, his eyes hidden behind huge round sunglasses with sequined rims. A fall of artfully cut short brown hair drifts around the frames. He is wearing denim shorts that barely qualify as more than a few ratty pockets and belt loops, the curve of his ass hanging out of them and dragging on the brick wall behind him. On his hairy chest is a cropped white t-shirt, with a huge rainbow heart in the middle of it. Emblazoned in sequins on the chest is the legend “COCK.” Astonished, he pulls up short, his feet rooting to the spot. 

Before him, the man bites his lip and lowers his sunglasses slowly, sweeping his eyes from his head to his feet unhurriedly. The shock as their eyes connect on the way back up runs along his entire spine, leaving his head vaguely tingling.

“ _Hello,_ there,” the man hums merrily, his eyes glittering. It is only then that his eyes focus fully, and he realizes that the man has a long white popsicle in his hand. His other hand rests on a quietly whirring portable freezer, whose power cable snakes back into the dimly lit building door at his elbow. 

“Uh?” he says, feeling his already sweaty face turn a deep red. 

With a flick of his hand, the man stuffs his sunglasses into a barely adequate pocket, revealing sparkling blue eyes that crinkle in amusement, and then gestures to the freezer. “Would you like one?” he offers. “You look hot.” 

Eyes traveling down the length of the other man’s arm, he realizes that the freezer must be full of more popsicles. Dumbly, he nods, not entirely sure he understands what’s happening. With a little flourish, the blue eyed man opens the freezer case and steps aside to allow him to look inside. He steps forward, feeling as if his head is wrapped in cotton balls, and peers into the depths of the little case. As he leans, he holds his bag steady so that it doesn’t knock his elbow as it shifts.

At the bottom there are boxes of plain-wrapped popsicles, one indistinguishable from another in their white plastic wrappers. He can feel burning scrutiny along his back as he leans over to swipe one from the freezer, and a low heat pools at the pit of his stomach even as his head swims. As he turns around, he finds the man a respectful distance away, innocently gazing up at the clouds as if assessing the weather and sucking on his white popsicle. Feeling off-balance, he turns and swipes the freezer closed before opening the flimsy wrapper on his own cold treat. It turns out to be green, and the frozen sweet tang of lime on his tongue is sharp and grounding. He brings his bloody, mangled hand up to wipe his face, and the other man hisses in sympathy. 

“Oh, darling. That looks like it hurts.” 

Bewildered, he stops and looks at his hand. The pain swims back, pulsing vaguely in time with his heart, as he stares at the injury like he’s never seen it before. 

“Let’s get you inside and take care of that.” Tutting, the man sweeps up behind him and ushers him through the door, into the cool sanctuary within. He’s too out of it to protest. Once inside he stares around the room, eyes wide and bewildered, feeling lost. The high walls are raw wood, scattered everywhere with tiny, colorful pieces of artwork. 

He finds himself installed at a bar in the far dark corner of the place before he has time to protest. It is silent and empty at this time of day. Remembering the popsicle in his hand, he tentatively licks at the drip of lime forming on the base of it and waits for his blown-out pupils to adjust to the relative darkness. The straps of his bag are starting to cut into his shoulders, and it is difficult to sit comfortably in the chair, but he can’t rally his faculties enough to take it off. 

He can hear bustling noises close by, clinking glasses and running water. It’s too hard to focus yet, so he doesn’t try, closing his eyes and letting the noise and heat of the street finally begin to bleed off of him. He curls his mangled hand back above his heart, trying to ignore the throbbing pain that pulses in time with his heartbeat. His awareness of the popsicle in his other hand fades away, along with everything else, as he sits at the bar and breathes in the quiet. There is a wall at his elbow, and utter silence behind him, the large room all the more reassuring because of the hugeness of its emptiness. No people. No crowds. No sounds. 

A damp thunk near his wrist causes him to open his eyes. The dark haired man is right in front of him, his face kind and curious. He stares in confusion as the room filters back into his consciousness. As his gaze comes into focus, he notices exactly how blue the man’s eyes are, a rich cerulean like rippling coastal waters in sunlight. His heart stutters in his chest and he quickly looks down, feeling even the tips of his ears begin to burn. Right near his arm is a tall glass of ice water, droplets already beading on the outside in the mercilessly sticky heat. The popsicle droops in his fingers as he stares at it for a long moment, trying to find his tongue.

Clearing his throat, he eventually manages a hoarse, “Thanks.” He grabs the glass in his injured hand and hisses in pain as the cold touches the sore, swollen underside. Undeterred, he takes a large swallow from the glass before raising it to run across his forehead and cheeks, trying desperately to cool himself. 

The other man vanishes only to return a moment later. He delicately pries the forgotten popsicle from his hand before placing it in an empty cup on the bartop. Startled by the touch, he looks down at his sticky hand in confusion before glancing back up into those soulful blue eyes again. Something at the bottom of his vision moves and his gaze drops. The brunet extends a towel towards him, a gentle little smile playing about his lips. He puts down his glass and takes it between numb fingers, tentatively beginning to wipe the sticky green syrup off of his hand. 

“Wait a moment, I have some hydrogen peroxide around here somewhere…” the man has already bustled out of sight again, leaving him in peace to inspect the damage to his right hand more closely. He probes it tenderly with the wet cloth, and hisses as it comes away red. As he focuses, he realizes that the blood has run between his fingers and snaked up his wrist, clotting on the knuckles and fingertips where it dripped when he had dropped his hand to his side. 

In front of him, he hears a gentle tut. Turning, he finds that the man has returned with a bowl of warm water and a surprisingly generous first aid kit, which he lays out on the bar unhurriedly. He opens it, glances across the bar at him, then holds out his hand. 

“May I?” he asks. 

Dumbfounded, he nods, allowing him to draw his hand across the bar to inspect it more closely. Any other day, any other time, and he would have probably picked up and left. But right now, dazed and heartsick, it is easier to say yes. He is lonely, far from the only people he knows, full of gnawing grief and sadness. The unaccustomed gentle touch as his hand is lifted and cradled leaves him dizzy, feeling guilty for how suddenly and deeply he craves it. The sudden impulse arises a moment later to yank his hand away, but the man glances up at him with deep blue eyes just before he does. His stomach flips hard and he subsides, allowing himself to be tended to.

The man bends over his hand carefully, chestnut brown hair falling over his eyes as he does so. He shakes his head slightly to dislodge a few inconvenient hairs, then begins very gently to clean and dress his wounds. Silence stretches between them, strained and intimate. The man finishes and withdraws to put away his medical supplies before returning to his guest.

As he waits, unsure of what to do next, he empties his tall glass of water and crunches on the ice cubes at the bottom. The jarring cold of them, combined with the relief of having his hand finally wrapped, brings him back to himself fully. He blinks, cautiously withdrawing his bandaged hand, studying the man in front of him with more focus now.

“There you are,” the man says warmly, cocking his head to the side and studying him right back. He has lovely, almost elfin features, high cheekbones, and a delicate nose. He is younger, slightly shorter, broad-shouldered, with a lean and rangy frame that is enhanced by his daring clothing. His lips are expressive, currently pursed as he eyes the older man with unabashed curiosity. “Hello, darling. Now. What’s your name?”

He is pretty sure he has never been called darling this many times in a conversation before… maybe not even in his _life._ Very few people have called him pet names of any sort. Pulling his glass in front of him awkwardly, he hesitates, then says roughly, “Geralt.”

“Hmm _mm._ Well, Geralt,” the other man says with a quick grin that sets his pulse racing, “Why don’t you take off that backpack and relax a moment? I’ll make you a quick snack.” Without waiting for a reply, he snatches the cup out of his hands and spins away to refill it with ice and fresh water. 

Geralt gulps, startled, and stammers out “I, uh, I can’t-” 

“On the house,” he says, turning back and placing the cup in front of him, alongside a tall pitcher with some sliced lemons dropped into it. Shocked back into silence, Geralt nods and carefully pulls the glass back across the bar to hold. His fingers trace droplets up and down the cold glass as he watches the man vanishing into the back of the bar. He notes in surprise that across his broad back, the crop top is decorated with a pair of glittering sequin wings.

As the clatter of kitchen implements begins somewhere out of his line of sight, Geralt slowly relaxes back into his seat. His bag bumps against the back of it and he startles, finally remembering it. Standing, he slings it under the counter at the base of his tall bar stool before resuming his perch. The blessed silence settles down across him, frayed and sizzling nerves finally beginning to quiet. He presses the cold glass to his forehead and closes his eyes once more, falling into a fuzzy exhausted numbness at last. 

It is some time later that a plate of food being plunked down in front of him announces the return of his host. It is simple fare but generous; a thickly stuffed roast beef sandwich with some sort of pink dressing, potato chips, and a generous helping of julienned pickled vegetables. He glances over the plate at the handsome man, who fixes him with a sunny smile and leans back against the counter behind him, bringing his foot up to rest on one of the shelves as he relaxes.

“You look like you’re new in town. Reassigned to Fort Morhen?” He inquires, eyes following Geralt’s big, scarred hands as he picks up the sandwich. The older man moves stiffly, face tight with pain and exhaustion, but looks at the sandwich with obvious hunger. 

Geralt hesitates, thinking, then takes a huge bite out of the sandwich. He hums quietly in pleasure. Then he nods, opening his eyes to see his host’s face. To his surprise, those bright eyes are soft, crinkling slightly at the corners.

“On leave?” he inquires, picking up a toothpick and beginning to toy with it. Geralt is beginning to get the impression that the other man is rarely still, watching as the toothpick flickers back and forth between long, capable fingers. 

“Ah… no.” Geralt says after he swallows, chasing the mouthful with a generous gulp of water. He grimaces before taking another bite. He takes the time to chew before answering. “Was just discharged.” 

The younger man’s face falls, and he drops his foot back to the ground. “Oh, no, I’m sorry.” His eyes flick up and down Geralt’s body again, softly curious. “Medical?”

With a grunt, Geralt jerks his head in a short ‘no.’ He mechanically takes another bite. “Dishonorable,” he says around the sandwich, avoiding eye contact, seeming to collapse in on himself. The younger man falls silent and still, and Geralt feels himself wishing that he could sink away through the floorboards. Bad enough that he betrayed the only people he loves. Now this man can hate him too.

Eventually, the man behind the bar grabs a glass and begins to fill it with beer from one of the taps. “Did someone ask,” he asks, very quietly, “...or did you tell?” He is careful to keep his eyes on the glass in his hands, waiting patiently for Geralt’s reaction. 

Geralt’s throat constricts into a stunned knot as he stares at the sequined wings on his back. They glitter softly with every shift of the man’s broad shoulders. “Uh…” he chokes out, after a long moment. He had been expecting to be kicked out of the bar, or for the man to scoff... had been expecting literally anything but _that_ question. Caught off balance, he reels.

The other man peeks over his shoulder, a sad smile playing about his lips. “I own the gay bar nearest to the base, darling,” he explains, turning back around and placing a frothing tankard of beer next to Geralt’s plate. Geralt’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to protest again. With a flap of his hands, the man cuts him off. “On the house,” he reminds him with a soft, bittersweet smile. “Everything’s on the house for you tonight. Stay as long as you like.” He turns away again, becoming absorbed in preparing the bar for the rush due in a few hours. 

Geralt’s gaze follows the glittering wings back and forth behind the bar as he eats, descending into thoughtful silence. He’s still thrown, but he feels strangely warmed by the man’s quiet acceptance, which gives him a dizzy, fizzing feeling in the pit of his stomach. After a while, surprised to find himself speaking, he volunteers, “Didn’t have to tell. New security camera did the job for me.” 

The man pauses, rag in hand, and glances over his shoulder at Geralt. He is grinning, eyes sparkling. “Oh, _my_ ,” he says. “Caught doing the _good_ stuff, hmm?”

Geralt feels like those inquisitive blue eyes are pinning him to the spot as he reddens, then nods shortly. 

“ _Mmm._ Well. At least you went out in a blaze of glory,” he hums pleasantly, resuming wiping down the counters behind the bar.

Geralt chokes on his beer, sputters, and puts the glass down on his coaster. The shorter man laughs easily, tossing him a rag to wipe himself with. Geralt paws the rag off of the bar and begins to dab at himself. Something is nagging at him, and as he wipes the beer off of his green shirt, he finally puts his finger on it. 

“What’s _your_ name?” he asks, placing the rag back on the bar. The man’s whole face lights up as he turns back towards him, holding a stack of glasses.

“I was _wondering_ when you’d finally ask,” he grins. “My name,” he flourishes a little bow, glasses clinking, “Is Jaskier.”

This is met with silence. So much silence that he straightens from his bow a little hesitantly, giving Geralt a queer look. Geralt gives him one right back, a slow half-grin creeping up his face. “...Jaskier? That _cannot_ possibly be your real name…” he takes a long, slow swig of the beer out of his tankard. “Buttercup.” Amber eyes glitter over the edge of the glass, watching Jaskier light up with laughter. 

“Yes, _yes!_ Where are you from, Poland? I thought I detected a little accent…” 

“Mm,” Geralt agrees around the edge of his tankard, draining the cold beer. “Spent my early childhood on a base out there.” 

“Ooh,” Jaskier trills. “Army brat?” He continues bustling around, now chopping lemons and limes for drink garnishes. 

Geralt nods, putting the empty tankard back on the counter and twirling one of his remaining potato chips between his fingers. “Lifetime on the bases. Yeah.” 

“Father an army man?” Jaskier continues, swiping the empty tankard on his way by and refilling it. 

“Mm.” Geralt hums an affirmative, taking the tankard from him with a nod of thanks. He half-drains this one, too, grateful as the warm numbness of the alcohol begins to soften all the jagged edges inside of him. “He died when I was a baby. Got adopted by a colonel.” He drains the rest of the beer in one gulp. 

“No mother?” Again, the tankard vanishes, and again it appears, refilled. Geralt pulls it close, sipping at it, slower this time. The beer is good, yeasty and bitter and cold. He shakes his head, leaning his elbows on the bar, slowly beginning to relax. 

“Nope. AWOL in Powidz, never heard from again. Happened a few months after my father died, according to army records.” He sucks some of the foam off the top of his glass, licking the bitter treat from his lips. “Never lived as a civilian before,” he adds, then pauses. “You still haven’t told me your name,” he reminds Jaskier, who laughs easily, tossing his hair out of his eyes. 

“No, darling, I haven’t. I suppose that’s a bit rude of me, but I don’t tell many people. _Julian_ is just so…” he flaps his hands expressively, searching for a word, “ _boring._ ” Geralt laughs, genuinely amused.

“So you went with ‘Buttercup?’” he asks dryly, tilting his head to the side, his eyes dropping to follow the swaying of Jaskier’s ass as he moves about behind the bar. 

“Not everyone speaks Polish, you know,” Jaskier trills, unphased. “Besides, they’re my favorite flower. Say the name of your true love while a buttercup is under your chin, and it will light your chin up yellow. Hmm. I loved playing that game as a child. So romantic!”

Geralt smiles lopsidedly, charmed in spite of himself. “That’s just a children’s game,” he rumbles. “No truth in it.”

“Ah, who needs truth when you can get kisses?” the tall man says easily, moving out from behind the bar and heading to the entrance of the club. His shoes, it turns out, are sequined the same color as his sunglasses and wings. With practiced, efficient movements, he hauls the freezer back into the darkness of the building and rolls it across the floor, past Geralt, and into the kitchen beyond. 

Mesmerized, Geralt watches him go, picking at the pickled vegetables and following the motion of Jaskier’s muscular legs. He tries to think of a time he’s ever spent around a man this flamboyant and easygoing. Wracking his brains, he draws a blank. Even the few dalliances he had allowed himself were very discreet in the way they presented to the world, never flaunting themselves like this man did so easily. He is dizzy with the newness of it, unable to distinguish the metallic tang of full-body fear from the arousal pooling low and hot at the base of his spine. Jaskier either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, fully absorbed in the task of setting the club up for the night. 

It was some time before Geralt found the means to speak again, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “What… ah… what was that event outside earlier?”

“What?” Jaskier says, muffled, from the back room. “Oh! You mean the Pride parade?” He comes out of the back room carrying a load of boxes stacked precariously in his strong arms. Walking over to the seating area out in front of the bar, he delicately negotiates around the tables until he reaches the largest one, directly between Geralt and the empty dance floor. Setting them down, he begins to sort them out and pull decorations out of them, fairy lights and rainbow streamers and more, cascading out until there is a giant pile. To Geralt it looks like chaos, but the man seems unruffled as he goes about beginning to decorate. 

“...The what?” he asks, genuinely confused. He swivels his stool around so that he can face Jaskier fully, curiosity bubbling. 

Jaskier looks over his shoulder at him, lips parted, eyebrows drawn up quizzically. “Pride…? You know, once a year when all the queers come out and…” he flaps one hand, searching for a descriptor, “riot with giant speakers playing the Village People and glitter bombs?” Seeing Geralt’s obvious confusion, he turns to study him. “Seriously not ringing a bell, darling? How long have you spent overseas?”

Geralt’s face feels numb, his tongue dry, and it takes him a moment to even move to finish his beer. He swallows the last of it awkwardly, rolling it around his mouth and trying to find his words. The man’s piercing gaze is rooting him to the spot, and as he looks at him, beautiful and lanky in the half-light, he thinks that he has never felt more out of his depth than he does right now. “Uh.” he says. 

Jaskier shifts, lifting a long hand to brush hair out of his eyes, and Geralt feels a wave of hot prickliness wash over his body. “Uh… Long time. Most of my life.” He gulps, realizing belatedly that he is starting to get hard under the lovely man’s penetrating stare. Leaning forward, he shifts his hips subtly in an attempt to adjust himself without drawing any further attention to his predicament. A small, knowing smile flickers across Jaskier’s face for just a moment, quick enough that Geralt isn’t sure that he actually saw it, and then the other man is turning away again and resuming the task of decorating. As he does so, he speaks. 

“Pride started out as a riot, love. We got sick of being beaten by the police, so we started fighting back. It lasted four nights, and… well, it changed the way people talked about us. This was in the 70’s…” he makes a little buzzing, humming noise as he thinks, “Mmm, no, tell a lie, it was 1969. And the next year was the first march.” Geralt shifts again, taking the opportunity to get more comfortable, turning his stool back so that he is no longer facing the lithe man so directly.

Jaskier begins running the fairy lights along the base of the wall, unspooling and untangling them before hanging them. “And every year since, in June, cities have held marches.” Backing up carefully, he navigates around a corner with the mess of cords, and continues, “Every year, more and more cities have had them. We’ve had ours since 1976, and we have gotten quite good at them.” He smiles, squinting up at the ceiling as he considers a dodgy looking fastener above him. “And tonight, is the busiest damn night of the year for the Pegasus…” His eyes slide sideways to meet Geralt’s again, flashing him a sly smile full of teeth, “Affectionately known as the Peg.” 

Geralt doesn’t know what that means, but the look makes his cock twitch uncomfortably in his trousers. Hurriedly, he turns back to his last few pickled vegetables, feigning great interest in them. “Hmm,” he says, around a mouthful of julienned carrot. 

Behind him, Jaskier watches him for a moment, eyes considering. Then he withdraws, retreating into the back room once more before emerging with a ladder. He seems content to let the big man sit in silence at the bar now, letting him finish eating in peace. 

Geralt’s head whirls. His whole life has been the military. Early mornings. Strict obedience to the chain of command. Upholding the code of conduct as a professional at all times, even off base. Sodomy was strictly forbidden, as codified in military statutes written well before he was born. The fact that there is not only a whole club, but a whole culture, a whole _country_ full of people who live this way is… unimaginable.

He crunches through a potato chip slowly, dragging the salty pieces across his tongue and focusing on them to keep himself from sinking too deep into numbness. His heart feels ragged and raw as he looks around the walls, focusing on the artwork for the first time. Many of them are little squares of stark black-and-white imagery, queer men and women captured in moments of impeccable geometry. The squares are bordered in frames, obviously handmade, covered in sequins and glitter, feathers, even funny little toys from gumball vending machines. He peers at the one closest to him, and at the bottom there is a legend with the name of the artist and title of the piece. 

_Robert Mapplethorpe - “Smutty,” 1980 New York, New York._

Geralt gapes at the image, eyes wide and lost. He doesn’t even notice at first when Jaskier slides up in front of him, pushing a shot glass full of clear spirits across the bar towards him. When he clears his throat, Geralt startles out of his reverie, spotting first the shot glass by his elbow and then, eyes traveling upward, finds Jaskier regarding him kindly again. He picks up the shot glass in numb fingers and sips. Vodka. The liquor burns warmly across his palate, making his tongue curl and his cheeks flush. The welcome sear of the alcohol turns into a dull spreading heat inside of him. It blurs the ragged, churning ache he is desperately trying to escape. 

“This is all rather a lot for you,” Jaskier observes quietly, eyes flickering over Geralt’s stiff face and hunched, unsure shoulders. Looking into his glass, Geralt nods, then slugs back the rest of the shot with a grimace. The lovely man’s face softens into a look of thoughtful concern, and he drums his fingers on the counter as he ponders something. As he comes to a decision, his fingers make a decisive tap. “Look. Do you have anywhere to be right now?”

A ‘yes’ comes rushing to Geralt’s lips, seeing an opportunity to flee the situation, but then those blue eyes fix him with such a _look_ that he is rooted to the spot. A look like that, the white-haired man gets the tingling feeling that he’d know the lie the second it got out of his mouth. He swallows it.

“...No,” he says reluctantly, his voice husky and quiet. 

Jaskier nods, taps firmly again on the counter, then straightens up. He emerges out from behind the bar and stands before Geralt, long and tall in the half-light. Geralt’s head tips back, and he eyes him uncertainly. “Come with me,” Jaskier says. “I have to open in about an hour, and it’s going to get _very_ rowdy out here…” A sly smile spreads across his face. “And a beautiful man like you won’t last a minute before some little twinkle-toed little horndog comes sniffing for you, darling.” 

Geralt gapes at Jaskier, who reaches out a hand, gently but firmly pulling him out of his chair in a manner that brooks no argument. His whole body lurches at the touch, the feeling somehow nauseating and exquisite all at once. 

“I have a bed in the backroom, in my office. I use it sometimes if I stay too late doing the books,” he explains. “You look like you need a rest.” He smiles, tugging Geralt along. Stunned, Geralt stumbles after him, remembering at the last minute to swipe his backpack from under his seat on his way by. A sure, strong hand pulls him across the floor of the club and into the storage room. Too exhausted to resist, it’s all he can do to keep his feet as he’s pulled along. They pass stacked kegs, boxes of paper towels, cleaning supplies, and at the back of _that_ room is a nondescript steel door. Jaskier pulls keys out of his pocket, unlocks the door after only a moment of fumbling in the dim lighting, and slips inside to turn on the light. 

As it flickers on, he blinks, looking around. The office is tiny, smelling mostly of stale brick and old wood. There is a tiny wooden desk that looks older than the building crammed right towards the front of the room, stacked high with ledgers and bills. Behind it are two filing cabinets, and at the very back, a rumpled bed with some raggy but comfortable looking blankets crumpled at the end. Jaskier steps forward and flicks on the little lamp on the desk, turning out the overhead and significantly dimming the light in the room. Then he begins jerkily clearing away the ledgers and bills, muttering to himself.

Geralt stands dazed in the doorway, backpack swinging from his fingers as he observes Jaskier’s chaotic movements. Then, his eyes drift to the bed, and upon seeing it his body feels suddenly crushed with exhaustion and sorrow. He can barely stand under the weight of it. His soul aches, and all he wants to do is forget for a few hours. 

When Jaskier looks up, he sees the lost and haunted look in the white haired man’s amber eyes. He pauses mid-motion, laying the papers slowly back down on the desk, as if being careful not to rustle them. “The bed’s back here. Sorry, I guess I don’t need to clean up all the way right now…” He grins awkwardly, fluffing the back of his short hair in a nervous motion. “Uh. I’ll be out bouncing at the door if you need me, once things get in full swing. The bartender’s name is Lars. If he tries to charge you anything, come get me and I’ll set him straight.” 

Geralt nods to show that he has heard, but finds himself locked in place, struggling to figure out what to do next.

Jaskier looks him over in concern, then purses his lips and hums softly. He advances on Geralt, taking him by the shoulders and gently, ever so gently, guiding him to the back of the cramped little office. He can feel Geralt’s shoulders stiffen under the contact, and with a sad look that Geralt can’t see, carefully withdraws his hands. “Sleep,” he suggests. “I’ll be back to check on you later if I don’t see you.”

Geralt nods again, a moment too late, the door already closing behind him. His body is still snapping and crackling with the unexpected touch, the imprints of Jaskier’s hands burning on his shoulders through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Dropping his backpack, he heaves a heavy sigh before sinking to the bed. The cheap springs of the metal frame shriek under his weight, and he grimaces as the sound rakes across his raw nerves. The drinks have mellowed him, though, and the room is blissfully cool and quiet. 

While he feels like he really ought to leave, ought to go anywhere else, it is beginning to sink in that he has _nowhere_ to go. Even if he gets to his storage unit, what is he going to do? Sleep in it? He can’t load anything into his dead truck. There is no place to take his few things to. He has no place to sleep. The money in his bank account won’t last him long. And he’d broken the last safe place that he was supposed to have, long ago. This latest episode of stupidity was only the final nail in the coffin. He can’t even bring himself to call them. Not yet. The future stretches out before Geralt, an unreadable mass of uncertainty that makes his stomach churn. He’d never not had a plan before. The military had provided him a life of strict routine, a clear future, stability. Maybe even a nice little grave with a flag at the end of it all. Now, he didn’t even have that to look forward to. 

Finally, heaving a sigh, he awkwardly unlaces his boots and lays down, pulling the covers over himself and settling onto the battered pillow. The whole world is too much, and he just can’t process it anymore. As he nestles into the bed, he notices that the whole bed has an oaky, musky scent, fresh soap and sweat and _Jaskier._ His head whirls with it as his body begins to relax, then, abruptly, turns off. 


	2. Do I Look Like I Have A Permit?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jaskier has to fire his bartender in the middle of the rush on Pride, and Geralt has just the skills to save the day.

He awakens an unknown amount of time later to a rhythmic buzzing that shakes the bed frame subtly. As he lifts his head, the sound resolves into a thumping bass beat that reverberates through the whole building. He sits up, swinging his legs off of the bed, and scrubs his face tiredly. His stubble scrapes against his palms, his bandages, his injured hand beginning to distantly throb as he awakens. His head is still swimming faintly, and the sensation of his aching hand doesn’t feel quite real. The humid air is cooler now, taking on a clammy quality in the old brick room, and it smells faintly of the night.

He sits for a long moment with his face in his hands, trying to pull himself together. The sleep has helped, but the clarity it brought carried with it unmistakeable despair, as well. Staring numbly at his boots, he feels a wave of shame creep up his body as he remembers again what he’s lost. He eventually fumbles them clumsily on, desperate for something to do with his hands, some way to feel less vulnerable and lost. The process is hampered by his injured hand, but he manages it eventually. He barely has time to steal another guilty look at the phone before he hears the bang of the back room door slamming, followed by raised voices.

“...Kids, Lars! I swear to fucking Jesus Christ on rollerskates, you absolute  _ asshole,  _ if I get shut down because of you I  _ will find you. _ You always check ID, especially on 18 and up nights! ALWAYS.” There was a mutter, and the louder voice cut it off, “I Do Not Care if it was dark, you absolute fucking dumpster fire of a human being! This is literally what I pay you for. NO! That is  _ what I paid you for.  _ Get out! Out, out, out! You’re fucking fired, and if I catch you anywhere near  _ any _ of those fucking boys, I will personally see you to the fucking  _ hospital! _ ” The last word is roared, loud enough that Geralt startles on the bed. The springs creak as his body jars, and as he is beginning to stand, the door to the office bangs open. Jaskier, alight with fury, barges into the office and seizes a rolodex on the desk, flipping through it with short, sharp motions. 

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fucking bag of cocks,  _ FUCK! _ ” he swears. Abruptly he stops, stormy blue eyes coming up and fixing on Geralt standing awkwardly near the bed. “Ah, fuck me. I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you,” he says, pulling a face. “I ah, just had to fire my bartender in the middle of the rush.” His gaze drops back to the rolodex, still flicking furiously. “Fuck  _ me, _ I don’t think any of these assholes are even going to be near their phone at this time of night. Not on fucking Pride…” His voice shakes with stress as he pulls out a few cards, tossing them onto the desk. Geralt watches silently as he begins to dial, shifting from foot to foot.

“Selling drinks to minors?” He asks quietly, as Jaskier hangs up the phone with a heartfelt curse and then picks it up to dial again. 

The younger man nods, lip curled in a snarl, punching the buttons on the base of the phone as if he could slake his rage on them. “Fucking ass cocking cheerios,  _ yes, _ and of all the nights-” There is the sound of a voicemail beeping coming out of the handset, and Jaskier snaps, “Julia, if there’s any God in heaven right now you will pick up this damn phone. I need a bartender  _ yesterday. _ Call me if you get this tonight.” He slams the handset back down onto the base and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose, slumping down to sit on the desk. 

Geralt shifts awkwardly again, eyes playing over Jaskier’s graceful body as he hunches in thought. His eyes drag over his sequined shoulders, linger on the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. The skin on his chest pulls hotly and prickles as he studies them, searching for words. “Uh…” he manages, throat tight, then grimaces. “No one else to call?” His insides feel like they are fizzing, the sensation making it hard to think clearly.

“Mmph,” Jaskier mumbles, flapping his hand at the cards in irritation. “No. No, my staff isn’t very large, and I’ve never…  _ never _ had to call back up on Pride.” A quick grin, more a snarl, flitted across his usually soft face. “Tips are too good. God’s cock, Lars is a fucking  _ idiot.  _ I swear if I see him again I’ll-”

“Do you need help?” The words tumble out of Geralt’s mouth before he can think them all the way through. 

Jaskier groans out a low chuckle, shaking his head. “Oh, darling, do I  _ ever. _ But what could you possibly do? Bounce? Bartend? Have you even been behind a bar before?” He drops his head into his hands, soft chestnut hair falling over his face as he rubs his eyes. “Fuck  _ me, _ ” he adds as an afterthought, muffled between his hands. 

“...I think you underestimate the amount of time servicemen spend in bars,” Geralt finally says, a lopsided smile creeping across his face. “I can make most drinks in my sleep.” 

Jaskier’s head comes up, and he eyes Geralt suspiciously. “Drinking is not  _ nearly _ the same thing as mixing, dear heart,” he says doubtfully, but Geralt can tell from the way he is hesitating that he is at least listening. 

Sighing, he steps away from the bed and goes to lean against the wall in front of Jaskier, crossing his arms across his chest in a confident gesture. Here, at least, he is on solid ground. He may have lost everything, but he knows drinks. “Old Fashioned. One teaspoon simple syrup, two dashes Angostura Bitters, orange peel, two ounces of rye or bourbon, one maraschino cherry.” 

Jaskier draws back, tilting his head to the side as he listens with a little furrow between his brows.

Warming to the topic, he feels more sure of himself as he begins to list ingredients without a second thought. “Dark and Stormy. Two ounces of dark rum, five ounces ginger beer, garnish with a lime. Long Island Iced tea. Half ounce gin, half ounce vodka, half ounce rum, half ounce tequila, half ounce triple sec, two tablespoons fresh lemon juice, spoonful of sugar, ice cubes, cola, garnish with a lemon wedge.” Geralt begins, slowly, to grin. It feels good to surprise Jaskier, to show him that he’s competent. “I can keep going.” 

“How…?” Jaskier finally asks, mystified. 

Geralt’s grin widens, and he finds his eyes traveling down Jaskier’s half-naked body, then dragging slowly back up again. As their eyes meet, he drawls, “Always had a good eye for proportions.” 

Jaskier sits back a little further, small spots of color forming on his cheeks, but then narrows his eyes at Geralt. “What about a Cuban Rose?” he asks, suspicious but also intrigued. 

Geralt replies promptly, “One and a half ounces white rum, three-quarters ounce orange juice, and a dash of grenadine. I can do more.” 

“Dark N’ Fluffy,” Jaskier presses. He is still eyeing him doubtfully, but his eyebrows shoot up as Geralt replies. 

“Two ounces marshmallow vodka, two ounces chocolate liqueur, one ounce cream, garnish with mini marshmallows and cocoa powder.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Tastes like an easter egg kicked you in the teeth, but to each their own.” He can feel his body beginning to relax as he speaks about the drinks, feeling on firmer footing at last.

Jaskier sucks air between his teeth thoughtfully, then says, “Mai Tai.” 

“Hmm… That’s a trick question. Do you want the Trader Vic’s version, or the crappy one?” Geralt fires back. 

Laughing, Jaskier raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Fine. Got a server’s permit?” 

“Do I  _ look _ like I have a permit?” Geralt retorts, dryly. 

Jaskier tosses his head back and barks out another laugh, then shakes his head. “No. No, I suppose I can’t have everything.” He hovers on the edge of his desk, hesitating, then throws up his hands. “You know what? I can’t think of a better way out of this. You’re hired for the night.” Pushing upright, he bustles out of the office and into the dimly lit storage room beyond. “Come with me, let’s get you started.” He flings his arms out in a broad gesture, declaring merrily, “If I’m going to go out of business for breaking the law, I want it to be with drinks all around.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt drawls, finding himself oddly charmed by the showy way Jaskier moves. Pushing off the office wall, he follows him into the storage room beyond. 

Jaskier gestures around, pointing at necessary supplies. “Beer kegs, cups, napkins. The bar back knows where everything is, but don’t let him  _ touch  _ the cocktail shaker, the man is a menace. Mm, let’s see, straws… Yes. Alright, let’s go, darling, out front. It’s going to be loud, are you ready?” He pauses, blocking the doorway, turning an appraising eye on the big man behind him. 

Drawing up short, Geralt also pauses as he reflects on the question. Normally, he would have scoffed and barged right past Jaskier out into the club, but he was still frazzled enough from earlier that the question merits a moment of consideration. Finally, he nods. Fierce blue eyes rake across him, and this time he meets the gaze steadily, unflinching. That seems to satisfy the younger man, and he gives a quick nod. 

“Well, then, let’s be off!” he cries, pushing through the door and into the noisy, crowded club.

A wall of sound, scent, and colorful light hits Geralt like a truck as he steps out behind Jaskier onto the dance floor. Booming bass in a disco style beat thrums through the bodies as they dance, and a woman’s voice threads tinnily out from the speakers. “ _ Look around, everywhere you turn is heartache, it's everywhere that you go, _ ” she sings, Jaskier weaving along the wall towards the bar. “ _ You try everything you can to escape, the pain of life that you know. When all else fails and you long to be, something better than you are today, I know a place where you can get away. It's called a dance floor… _ ”

Geralt sets his shoulders and puts his head down, following quickly after Jaskier, trying not to look too closely at the people he is passing. The scent of sweat and cologne and sex is thick on the air, making him dizzy. It is with palpable relief that he ducks behind the bar, glad to put a solid piece of furniture between himself and the beautiful, gyrating people on the dance floor. 

Over closer to the bar it is much quieter, even with the growing crowd queuing for drinks. The bar itself is surrounded by small tables, places where little knots of people gather to sit and drink together off of the main floor. He feels a little lost as he watches two men lean together, tongues sliding into each other’s mouths. Heat races across his shoulder blades and pulls at his groin, mingling with a sharp twist of fear. He is relieved when Jaskier begins to speak, half shouting over the music. 

“Okay, darling, here’s how it’s going to work. I will show you where everything is, you show me your chops, and you get to keep the tips. Make sure to split them with the kitchen and bar staff, or they will hate you  _ for life,  _ I warn you now!” He begins bustling around behind the bar, identifying taps, pointing out hidden locations of necessaries like maraschino cherries and clean towels, then steps back. “Okay, I think that’s everything. Questions?” Geralt looks around the bar carefully, memorizing the locations of everything. Someone calls a complaint out to Jaskier, who holds up his hands apologetically. “We’ll be right with you, gorgeous! One moment!” His gaze returns to rest on Geralt, who is cracking the knuckles of his uninjured hand thoughtfully against his bicep. 

Finally, Geralt shakes his head “I think I’m all set. Who’s the bar back?” 

Jaskier grins, turning to shout back over his shoulder. “Yarpen? Where the  _ fuck _ are you? It’s slammed out here!” 

Around the corner of the kitchen door, a short, wiry man with a bald head and a full ginger beard appears almost immediately. “Here, just replacing the orange sli-  _ hello, _ ” he breaks off, taking in the towering figure of Geralt standing behind Jaskier. “Why, aren’t  _ you  _ fine!” The man’s green eyes twinkle playfully, his teeth flashing in a crooked grin. He is dressed in jeans, a leather harness adorning his spare, muscular torso, and a nipple ring winks up at Geralt in the dim light of the bar. 

Rolling his eyes, Jaskier steps out from between the two of them. “Yarpen, this is Geralt, our new bartender for the night. Play nice, he’s new in town. Geralt, this is Yarpen, my bar back. Don’t let him get to you, he’s an  _ idiot. _ ” And with that, Jaskier smacks Yarpen’s muscular shoulder lightly. “If he needs to know where anything is, show him. Run the register. Keep an eye out in case he misses anything.” Turning to Geralt, he taps the man’s broad chest, “And  _ check. Every. ID. _ ” 

Geralt grins easily down at Jaskier, studying his cerulean eyes, taking in his soft handsome face as it sets in a ferocious expression. His golden gaze lingers for a second on his thinned lips before flicking back up, eyes locking with Jaskier’s. “Got it. Check IDs, don’t fuck it up.” His body hums with the nearness of the other man, blood still fizzing like champagne. He feels better now, confident, almost forgetting to be afraid and heartsore as his eyes travel across the face in front of him.

Jaskier’s tongue flicks across his lips briefly as he considers Geralt, then seems to shake himself, nodding. “Exactly.  _ Don’t fuck it up. _ I’ll be at the door if you need me.” He whirls, making apologetic noises to the deepening crowd at the bar. “Sorry darlings, had a minor emergency. Meet Geralt, your new bartender!” And with that, Jaskier flits out from behind the bar and races back to the front door of the club, relieving a man in a cook’s apron. The broad-shouldered man has wild red hair and an ominous frown, but as he approaches, Geralt sees that most of the lines on his face are from laughter. He moves aside, noting with surprise that the cook is even bigger than he is as he slides around him and passes into the kitchen. Then he turns to the crowd. “Right. Who’s first?” 


	3. Private Entry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the night, Geralt is exhausted and has nowhere safe to go. Jaskier isn't about to let that slide.

**Chapter 3: Private Entry**

The rest of the night passes in an absolute whirlwind. Yarpen, working at his elbow, is by equal measures competent, flirtatious, and incredibly sarcastic. He moves quickly about behind the bar, keeping Geralt oriented and making sure ingredients are near to hand as he needs them. Despite Geralt’s inexperience they quickly find a working rapport, hustling in the soggy evening heat as the orders fly in. Geralt has no idea what to do with the flirtation, but does know how to handle being around a man with a competent personality, and despite his troubles he finds that he is slowly relaxing. The quick-witted bar-back is easy company even in the worst of the rush, and the challenge of the work gives him something to focus on. 

The tips are slow at first. Geralt is terse and stiff, avoiding eye contact and moving with sparse efficiency. But, drinks go out, drinks are drunk, drinks are  _ appreciated. _ By the end of the night, the jar is stuffed full, and the bar is finally empty. Geralt sighs, wiping the last of the drips off of the bar. He tosses the towel in the hamper, then allows Yarpen to shoo him out of the way as he begins to clean.

As he goes, Yarpen presses a cold bottle of beer into his hands. “You earned it.” 

Geralt takes it, glances at Jaskier advancing, and uncertainly nods his thanks. His bandaged hand, long-forgotten in the rush, is beginning to ache again. 

Jaskier winks at him and then slides past him to lean on the counter near where Yarpen is working, nabbing a cherry and popping it into his mouth. As he does so Geralt retreats to the bar stool he had been on at the beginning of the day, the wall at his elbow. 

“ _ So.  _ Yarpen,” Jaskier says, eyes twinkling merrily, “How did he do?” 

“The man’s a machine. We need three more of him,” Yarpen crows, grinning wickedly as he sprays the counters down with disinfectant. “Do they make more like him?  _ I  _ want one.” 

Jaskier tsks, exasperated, waving Yarpen away. “Get your own.” He grins and cuts a quick glance at Geralt before ducking around Yarpen and going into the kitchen. 

Flustered, Geralt fumbles around for the bottle opener on his key chain, grateful for the chance to avoid making eye contact with Yarpen. 

Laughing again, the wiry man comes over to the counter. “Hey. Let me show you how to divvy up the tips.” Geralt’s head comes up and he half-smiles, nodding. Yarpen empties the jar out on the counter, gives a low whistle, then sets about dividing the bills and coins. Geralt watches in mute fascination as Yarpen explains the proper percentages, how many back of house staff get a share of the tips, and how that relates to their wages. When he finishes, Geralt takes the proffered bills and coins with a small nod of thanks, then sags back into his seat as Yarpen hustles off to pay out the kitchen workers. 

He nurses his beer quietly while the staff clears up and clears out, the high of the evening settling back into a gnawing numbness while he drinks. When he finishes, he sits spinning his bottle around and around, fingering the label without actually feeling it. A warm hand right above the small of his back wakes him from his reverie with a start, and as he looks up he finds Jaskier looking pleasantly back down at him. His cheeks heat as he feels the warmth of the man’s bare stomach near him, eyes flickering down to take in the dark line of hairs on it before meeting his gaze again. The base of his spine tingles as he feels Jaskier considering him in the dim light. The hand at his back burns, the unaccustomed touch almost searing. 

“Well, darling. You certainly made an impression tonight.” Breaking away, Jaskier plunks two cold beers onto the bar top and slides into the seat next to Geralt with easygoing grace. “Thank you for stepping in when you did, you saved my night.” He lifts his beer and tips it at Geralt in a little salute before taking a long drink.

The corners of Geralt’s lips tug, a smile playing about them despite the churning of his stomach. “...It was nothing,” he says, after fishing around for the right words. His back buzzes and tingles where Jaskier’s fingers had brushed it a moment before, making his heart race unpleasantly. Jaskier’s eyes glitter in the dim light, watching Geralt over the rim of his beer bottle. Sucking in a deep breath, Geralt quickly drops his gaze to the bartop. 

Jaskier shifts, leaning back comfortably. His gaze lingers on Geralt, his expression mild. “It’s always nice in here, after they all leave. Quiet,” he says, after a long pause.

“Mm,” Geralt agrees, taking a long swallow of his beer. He glances out of the corner of his eye at Jaskier, who is still regarding him frankly. A long quiet stretches between them, awkward, but also kind. Finally, Jaskier speaks again, his voice very soft indeed. “Do you have any place to go? Tonight?” Geralt’s lips twist, thinning. He looks down and away, avoiding his gentle expression, shoulders tensing up. 

Jaskier waits in respectful silence for a moment, and seems just about to take a breath to speak when Geralt finally says, “My truck. If I can find it. I’ll figure out someplace to be tomorrow after I wake up. It’s fine.” 

A frown furrows Jaskier’s brows, and he rolls the beer bottle’s rim thoughtfully along his lower lip. After a moment of thought, he speaks. “...No. No, I don’t think so. I think  _ you, _ ” he says, and leans forward, fixing Geralt with a most stunning smile, “Are coming home with me.” Geralt gapes, puffing, and begins groping for a way to protest when Jaskier cuts in. “I have a loft apartment above my house. It’s not much, no kitchen, but it has a bed and a shower… and a private entry. You’ll have to come downstairs in the morning to get breakfast, I’m afraid,” he brushes his fingers lightly over Geralt’s shoulder, pulling away respectfully when Geralt startles, then, slowly, putting them back as the man stills and looks back at him from beneath his lashes. 

“Private entry?” Geralt asks, his voice low and rough. Jaskier squeezes his shoulder and withdraws, gentle as a breeze. 

“Private entry,” he confirms. “I’ll give you the key so you can get in and out in the night if you feel cooped up. The uh, the door locks automatically behind you, I don’t want you to get locked out.” He stands up, extends a hand, and pulls Geralt out of his seat. Geralt rises awkwardly, standing over the lovely man and studying his face, captivated by the shadows pooling around his features in the dimness. It reminds him of one of the Mapplethorpe photos on the walls, and he feels a sudden sharp pain through the whole of him as his eyes trace the sweet curves of Jaskier’s cheeks and lashes. 

Jaskier sighs, reaching up to brush his hand kindly along Geralt’s cheek, then turns away and begins to lead him toward the back of the bar. Geralt hesitates painfully, weighing his options, his cheek tingling and his heart pounding. His feet, not waiting for his mind to catch up, begin to move of their own accord. He drifts in Jaskier’s wake like a lost soul, following him to the office. They retrieve Geralt’s bag and Jaskier’s car keys, then set out to lock up the bar. Jaskier pats the door affectionately before turning to smile at Geralt, beckoning him to follow. They walk together up the street to find Jaskier’s car, side by side in the dark.


	4. I Need A Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt wakes up the morning after Pride and he is Not Happy. Jaskier does his best to help. Massive thank you to @stressedspidergirl who is best beta!

Above Jaskier’s house was a small attic studio. It was painted a mellow sky blue inside, with white moulding, furniture, and decorations. It consisted of one room divided into two parts. First, there was a sitting area on a white tiled floor, with wicker chairs and a wicker table with a clear glass top. On a shelf below a windowsill there was an electric kettle and a box of rather rumpled looking tea sachets in their paper envelopes. Mugs were visible on the lower tier, stored neatly upside-down. Behind a half-wall, there was a sleeping area with a twin-size bed and two small dressers emblazoned on the sides with painted cornflowers. By the dusty, empty smell, no one had been up here in some time. There was a bathroom in the corner, with a full sized bathtub and a little sink above which a white mirror hung with makeup lights sat. There was only one entry, a simple white door that led to a steep staircase wrapping around the outside of the blue house and terminating in the driveway. 

The light in the room turns to grey, dim fingers of it penetrating through the windows to caress the simple wicker decorations on the low half-wall separating the sleeping area from the main room. In the bed, Geralt breathes deeply, head lolling awkwardly where it rests halfway on his pillow, his injured hand resting on his chest. 

By the time he had arrived here last night, he had barely been able to hear Jaskier explain the little apartment over the roar of exhaustion in his ears. He had fallen into bed, fully dressed save for his boots, and had moved only once during the night to pull the creamy blue and white duvet over himself when the temperature had finally dropped. He had barely even managed to get his head on the pillow.

Now the temperature creeps back up again as the dawn light warms, turning a rich buttery color as the sun comes up over the horizon. Geralt’s eyes flicker open, habit and light conspiring to rouse him from slumber. He glances around, disoriented, then closes his eyes again quickly. The blue and white room is frighteningly unfamiliar, friendly colors and new smells crushing up against him as he begins to wake. It stirs half-remembered guilt and shame, burning feelings that he would much rather escape. Dimly realizing that he is no longer on a schedule and doesn’t have to wake, Geralt heaves a heavy sigh. Rolling over, he puts his arm over his head and curls softly under the covers. His arm blocks out the light and he retreats into the warm hollow that his body has made in the blankets. With a yawn, he drifts back to sleep.

This process repeats several times, until the room is bright and hot and Geralt’s bladder is achingly full. Each time the guilt and the shame press harder, a growing static that gnaws at him even in his sleep. Finally he is forced to open his eyes. As he lays there with his arm over his face, squinting out at the hot light of the attic, he hears a stereo turn on below him. It’s muffled, too quiet to pick out the words, but the beat is happy and strong. His heart speeds up and stutters as he tries to parse the addition of the music to his already overwhelmed senses, and his lips pull back to show his teeth as he growls in irritation. Sudden tension races along his arms, whipcord strong and hot as lightning. His hand lashes out, bandaged knuckles slamming into the wall before he can think. The world vanishes for a moment in a brief, hot flash of pain that whites his vision out.

The wall reverberates, and below, quiet footsteps pause. A moment later the stereo volume lowers, and the rhythmic sounds of daily living resume. Geralt shakes his head to try and clear the cottony feeling away, tries to shake off the stars exploding behind his eyes from the pain in his hand. Rolling, he staggers out of bed and cradles it to his chest as he limps towards the door he faintly remembers Jaskier indicating as the bathroom. 

The little room is clean and quiet, with very little to say for itself aside from an empty towel ring and a plastic basket full of half-used toiletries sitting on a back shelf. As he passes the mirror he spots his stubbly reflection out of the corner of his eye and remembers that he needs to shave. 

After relieving himself he retreats to his backpack. Squatting down, he eyes the khaki sack critically, bracing himself to confront the contents within. His mouth tastes like ashes as he reaches out and tugs open the zipper. The discharge papers tumble out, pages upon pages of his career on trial sifting to the carpet like dead leaves. Pages of reminders of what he has lost. He can feel his face go numb first, then his tongue, a wave travelling outwards until it robs even his feet of sensation. 

His eyes go blank as he paws automatically through the rest of the sack, retrieving his last pair of clean fatigues, his socks, underwear, straight razor, and soap. He sets these aside jerkily on one of the dressers, then turns and kneels, gathering the papers back into the folder. His movements are sloppy and disjointed as he fumbles the papers together, scanning them without reading them, placing them back in order on autopilot. Then he shoves the folder under the bed, right next to the sack, and straightens. Below him there is still the faint sound of music, and someone’s voice, presumably Jaskier’s, breaks out into a muffled song. In a fog, he grabs his things off of the dresser and heads for the shower.

After he is clean he gets out, dressing himself. The music has stopped by now, and the bathroom has descended into dripping silence. The soggy bandage is still on his hand, but he’s not ready to confront it yet. Instead, he takes his dirty shirt to the mirror, scrubbing some of the steam away. He eyes his reflection critically, then the makeup bulbs, giving them a puzzled grimace. Turning, he retrieves his shaving implements from the shelf next to the plastic basket, coming back to the mirror only reluctantly. The last of the fog from his shower is beginning to clear, and he eyes his reflection uneasily. 

His white hair is shaved short, too short to be mussed by sleep and showering. He has a handsome face. It is pale, with high cheekbones, a square jaw, and lips that have a surprisingly lovely cupid’s bow. Under his wide amber eyes there are shadows though, dark and hollow. The lines of care in his face are graven deeper than usual, darkened by stress and tight with pain. His heart aches as he tries to meet his own gaze, finds that his stomach churns when he tries. Worse, his face is littered with white stubble, making him look grizzled and unkempt. Untrustworthy looking, he decides; undesirable. Still, he realizes as he gingerly flexes his injured hand, there is no way he can safely shave with his straight razor. With a disgruntled sigh, he tosses the shirt back onto the toilet and begins to clean up after himself. 

By the time he is done, there is a tentative knocking on the outside door. Feeling his whole body contract with sudden tension, he stops dead in his tracks halfway out of the bathroom. The rest of the little loft is suffused with light and warmth, a peaceful heat that sinks deep into his bones. He stares about the little room, searching for answers as he tries to figure out how to react.

“Geralt?” A muffled voice calls from outside of the door. Geralt recognizes Jaskier’s voice instantly; Would recognize it anywhere, even though he’s only known him for a night. A flush creeps across his whole body as he dithers, damp towel clutched tightly. “Geralt? Is everything all right?” Jaskier calls again, sounding worried. “Just, it’s two o’ clock in the afternoon… I thought you might be hungry. May I come in?”

Geralt turns to look at the door, seeing the lanky shadow of the handsome man through the shade. He rasps, “I’m fine.” The words seem to unstick him. He strides across to the bed in a swift, efficient movement, drops the towel, and calls gruffly, “I’ll be right there.” He tucks the rest of the items back into his bag in a neat roll, followed by the discharge papers. His injured hand flashes with bright hot pain as he stuffs the papers into his bag, and he growls under his breath. Then he rises and quickly opens the attic door for the man waiting patiently outside.

He is greeted by a charming, crooked smile as Jaskier greets him over a little tray holding two coffees and a couple of open faced bagel sandwiches. There’s sugar, even cream, each in little bowls that bear a buttercup motif. Jaskier himself is dressed in a loose yellow tank top and denim shorts, though these are significantly longer than yesterday, hanging down to just above his knees. His face is lightly stubbled; he hasn’t bothered to shave yet today. Seeing this, Geralt isn’t sure whether to be irked or charmed by how informally the man comports himself. 

“There you are,” Jaskier sighs happily, tilting his head and fixing Geralt with a wide smile. “Breakfast?” As Geralt steps stiffly aside to let him in, he nudges past him and into the loft, humming, “Well, I suppose it’s more like lunch, but never mind that. How are you today?” Bending over, he places the tray on the little table, then straightens and glances over his shoulder at Geralt. 

Geralt is still standing in the doorway, studying the other man with quiet intensity. While he’s been around civilians before, he’s never seen one quite like Jaskier up close, never seen a man so perfectly comfortable in his softness. It makes him want to bark at the man to fuck off, it makes him want to run away… it makes him want to sit and eat and never stop looking at him, ever again. He clears his throat as he feels Jaskier’s gaze upon him, closing the door with a little soft ‘thump’ that he half-feels, half-hears.

Jaskier turns and sits himself down in one of the wicker chairs, gesturing an invitation at the other one. Giving the chair a long stare, Geralt weighs his options. He is right next to the door; all he has to do is turn and walk away. It’s not like he needs anything in his backpack, not really. Even the documentation proving his identity is practically worthless now, and what isn’t, he can eventually replace. 

As if sensing Geralt’s thought process, Jaskier carefully picks up his coffee cup and leans back in the chair, fixing him with a gentle but frank look. “Breakfast makes vanishing into the wild blue yonder a little easier, Geralt. At least have a bite before you go?” 

Geralt fixes the younger man with a look of guarded astonishment. His injured hand twitches on the doorknob, then slides down to rest at his side. It gives a dull throb, but he crams the pain down, ignoring it with practiced skill. Rumbling doubtfully, he rocks back and forth once on his sock feet before tentatively advancing towards the empty chair. His ears burn as he realizes that he is so disoriented that he was genuinely about to run out the door without his shoes, and subsides into the chair across from Jaskier with a sheepish grimace. 

“There, now,” Jaskier says, pleased, and pushes the coffee towards Geralt. Geralt takes it gratefully, humming with pleasure as he picks the warm cup up gingerly in his left hand. He leans his elbows on his thighs and blows on it, feeling the pleasure of the warm steam and rich scent playing across his lips. Unlike the coffee available on base, this smells lively and rich. He takes a tentative sip and raises his eyebrows, impressed. Jaskier beams and pushes the sandwich towards him, too. 

Geralt tentatively tugs the sandwich towards himself with his bandaged hand, cradling the coffee mug in the other. Jaskier’s eyes flicker as he grimaces in pain, his gaze dropping to the soggy bandage that Geralt is still wearing. 

A little furrow appears between his brows, but instead of addressing the pain Geralt is obviously in, he says, “Normally at this time of day today I’m off at work, but luckily for us, I have the day off.” He fixes Geralt with a sunny smile, picking up his bagel and taking a bite out of it. “Which means I’m at your disposal for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Day job?” Geralt inquires, his voice thick and a little hoarse. He grimaces again and takes a swig of coffee to clear his throat. 

Jaskier nods pleasantly, chewing. He watches Geralt’s sore hand out of the corner of his eye thoughtfully as he continues, “Mmhm! I’m an adjunct professor at the college a few blocks from here, get to ride my bike to work on nice days. It’s summer so it’s only office hours and faculty meetings once a week right now, but in fall it picks up.” 

Geralt tilts his head to the side, considering this information, trying to conceal his surprise. “What do you teach?” he asks, after a moment, then picks up his bagel and takes a bite. There’s ham on it, lettuce, tomato, cheese, even a fried egg. The mayonnaise has hints of garlic and rosemary, sharp and delicious. Probably not store made, then. Impressed despite himself, he eyes the sandwich, then Jaskier. 

“Medieval music theory!” Jaskier proclaims, eyes twinkling. “Terribly arcane, I’m afraid, but I simply fell in love with it as a young man, and now here I am.” He sips his coffee and licks a drop of it off of his lower lip reflectively. “At least it helps pay the bills. Worse things could be said for a passion.” Shrugging, he sets the cup back down and takes another bite of his sandwich. “Do you have any plans for the day?” Despite himself, he finds his eye straying back to Geralt’s bad hand, watching with concern as the other man painfully cradles his bagel. 

“No.” Geralt replies shortly, taking another bite of his sandwich. Now that he’s started eating, he can finally feel how hungry he is, and he makes short work of the food. 

Jaskier watches in fascination as the bagel vanishes in only three or four big bites. Geralt finishes by unceremoniously draining his coffee cup. Jaskier searches for something to say, settling on, “Well then. Let’s at least take another look at that hand of yours, darling. I have a first aid kit downstairs.” He puts his half-eaten sandwich back on the tray, along with his empty coffee mug, and stands. “I’ll meet you down there. Do you remember where the front door is?” 

“Yes,” Geralt says, who doesn’t remember anything of the sort. He was far too tired to remember what his name was last night, much less the exact location of the front door of the house. He figures it won’t be hard to find, though, and he is desperate for an excuse to be alone for just another moment while he tries to collect himself. Jaskier nods and heads for the door, beginning to fumble with the tray in an attempt to get the doorknob. Standing hurriedly, he steps around him and pulls the door open. It puts him face to face with the smaller man, and when Jaskier turns another thousand-watt smile on him, he feels like the floor has dropped out from under him, leaving him in free-fall. 

Jaskier studies Geralt’s face for a moment, kind blue eyes tracing the contours of his scarred cheeks and square jaw. He lingers briefly on his lips, chapped and cracked from dehydration and stress. A quick sad expression flits across his face, and he turns away. “All right then, I’ll see you in a moment Geralt.” As he turns and exits, the tension humming between them snaps and dissipates, leaving the air of the attic feeling oddly empty in its wake. 

Geralt closes the door behind him as he leaves, slow and soft, like he half doesn’t want to shut it. He steps back from the door bewildered, feeling his hand pulse and ache with the sudden pounding of his heart. Reluctantly, he glances down at it. The bandage is beginning to dry again, a stiff, disgusting brown from where the blood has soaked into the gauze. His hand itself is swollen and red, far worse than it was yesterday. Running his eyes across it, his lips pull back in a grimace as he notes the mangled skin peeking out from the place where the bandage has come loose. He would take care of it himself, Jaskier be damned, except that he doesn’t have any medical supplies. Deep down, he knows that an infection isn’t worth his pride. 

After a further moment of delay, he returns to the bedside and sits next to his wet towel, staring at his tan leather boots. They are worn but well-cared for, stained, a little thin around the heels on the inside. He ponders how to get them on, as his hand is becoming stiffer by the moment. The pain is growing from a distant misty throb to a full blown, gnawing ache, which makes it difficult to think properly. Gritting his teeth, he decides to just grab them in his good hand and shove them on. The laces he pulls carefully tight. He fumbles with them for a long moment, trying to tie them, but his injured hand is so stiff that he can’t manage proper knots. Grumbling with frustration, he shoves the laces into the top of his boots and stands.

He looks around for the keys to the attic, spotting them on top of one of the dressers where he tossed them the night before. Those go into his pocket before he heads for the door. But, as he reaches it, he stops. His heart constricts in his chest as he hovers there, feeling the weight of his vulnerability pressing down on him. The idea of going into yet another new setting, of sitting across from that unbelievably kind man and letting him touch his hurting hand, is too much to handle. He feels like the oxygen is going out of the room as he stands there with his fingers on the doorknob, unable to move forward, unable to retreat. The room fades into a blurry blue and white impression as he begins to pant, lips numbly tingling. He steps back from the door instinctively, staggering to one of the wicker chairs and sinking into it. 

Time swims as he hunches in the chair, awkwardly pulling his hand in close to his chest and huffing short breaths. Shame sweeps up his body, his posture collapsing as he tries to fight his way out of the panic. When he was young this never happened to him, but recently it had been coming on more and more frequently. He begins quietly, subtly rocking in the chair, pressing his face into his arm. The warmth of it is grounding, the smell of his skin bringing him slowly back into himself. In the end, he stills, leaning back into the chair with a heavy sigh as the tension in his body begins to run out. A fuzzy haze settles over him, and he closes his eyes as the numbness sweeps up and blankets him in darkness. 

He becomes dimly aware of footsteps on the stairs some time later. Stirring, he sits slowly up in the chair, gold eyes focusing on the door as the footsteps come closer. The tall shadow of Jaskier shows through the curtains again, and he hears a gentle knock. “Geralt? Is everything ok?” 

It is  _ not _ ok, but Geralt doesn’t know how to say that, so instead he calls thickly, “M’fine. Got distracted.” Outside, Jaskier is silent for a moment. Then he says, “I brought my first aid kit upstairs. Would you mind terribly if I came in and looked at your hand?”

Geralt sits stiffly, hand cradled along his collarbone, feeling uneasy and a little trapped. Even his closest friends had rarely treated him with such persistent kindness; had rarely needed to. He was not a person who made himself vulnerable easily, and had gone to great lengths to keep his distance from anyone who might see him that way. On one level, he knew that accepting the man’s kindness was fine. Sensible, even. On the other, all he wanted to do was run until he found someplace dark and quiet to hide and never emerge from, ever again. 

Outside, Jaskier sighs. “Geralt, are you sure you’re okay?” His voice carries a little worried note in it this time that makes Geralt flinch. 

Geralt is tempted to lie again. It comes right to his lips, but stutters and stops before he can speak it as he watches the little movements of the man outside. Feeling oddly light, he stands to walk across the room and opens the door. He steps aside and looks down into Jaskier’s uncertain face, his own expression unreadable, then gestures shortly for him to enter. 

Jaskier does so without argument, ducking inside before the ex-soldier has a chance to close the door on him again. He places the first aid kit on the little glass table and sits, making himself smaller immediately, and Geralt feels himself relax. Seated, the man looks softer, less demanding. He notices that his face is cleaner, too, all the stubble shaved away. Geralt’s bright gaze rakes over him sitting in the wicker chair, taking in the gentleness of his posture, the frank kindness that he regards him with. Stomach still churning uneasily, Geralt notices that he is nevertheless warmed by the gaze fixed on him. He feels his own face soften from a glare into an expression of uncertainty, eyes flicking between Jaskier and the empty chair. 

Jaskier makes no movement whatsoever, his body language quiet and gentle as he continues to watch Geralt in the doorway. He can feel the man’s hot golden gaze searing across him, feels the weight of his attention as he considers what to do. He is hummingly aware of how dangerous the tall man looks, his toned body alert beneath his fatigues. Despite that, he finds that he is unafraid. He slowly leans back, sweeping his hand towards the first aid kit. 

“I won’t touch you if you don’t want help. I just thought you might need this.” He feels his heart constrict a little in his chest as the man obviously relaxes, uncertain expression easing. All he wants to do is stand and push the man into the chair, to lavish him with gentle affection, but he gets the sense that this could cause the man to shut down or worse, lash out. So he holds still, exquisitely still, allowing Geralt to come to his own conclusions. 

Geralt relaxes as Jaskier leans back, offering him the first aid kit. He feels by turns ashamed and relieved, his throat tight and his cheeks burning. Flexing his good hand slowly, he pushes at the numbness that is trapping him, urging it to abate. Feeling begins to return to the tip of his tongue, his lips, slowly spreading until he finds himself able to move freely again. Clearing his throat, he walks to the empty wicker chair and sits without further comment. Rummaging through the first aid supplies, he pulls out what he needs in silence. 

Jaskier watches as the man bends to the task of caring for his hand. When he peels the bandage off, he leans over to the side and grabs a small wastebasket from near the tea shelf. He extends the basket to Geralt, and Geralt flicks his gaze briefly to him, nodding an acknowledgement as he tosses the bandage into the bin. Then he begins to methodically clean his wounds, face tight and wooden as he wipes them clean with cotton balls soaked in soothing antiseptic. 

Jaskier inspects the wounded hand from a distance as he does so, finally able to get a clear look at it for the first time since yesterday afternoon. The skin is raw and ugly around the knuckles, pitted from the impacts with the tree. His fingers are curled thickly inward, held in place by the swelling that makes his whole hand look angry and bruised. There is a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as Jaskier realizes that these are no mere abrasions that he’s looking at. Not anymore, at least; unless he’s missed his guess, Geralt’s hand looks broken. 

Silence stretches as Geralt cleans, wraps, and tapes his hand. Then, he looks up and flicks his eyes to Jaskier’s for just a moment before cutting off to the side. “I need a hospital for this,” he rumbles, his deep voice cutting through the silence. 

Jaskier’s thinned lips pull into a grimace of dismay and he nods, unsurprised. “There’s a hospital not far away from here. I can drive you.” 


	5. Fire Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt is wants to know why Jaskier is being so helpful. Jaskier does his best to explain, and Geralt gets to hear a little bit of the history of the local gay community.

At first, the car ride is silent. Jaskier had tried to turn on the radio earlier, but Geralt had fixed his hand with such a look when he reached for the knob that he found himself cautiously withdrawing it, afraid of losing the hand. He searches for things to say, but the man next to him seems so withdrawn right now that it almost feels like a violation to pry. The air conditioner hums quietly, churning to keep the air in the car cool enough to tolerate in the thick humid summer air. 

As the little car rolls up to a stoplight about halfway to the hospital, Geralt finally speaks. “Why are you doing this?” He stares straight ahead as he asks this, scanning the street in front of them with a serious expression. His square jaw is tight, his eyes flicking back and forth across the landscape as if looking for threats. 

Jaskier startles from a reverie, turning and cocking his head at Geralt. “Doing what?” he inquires.

Geralt cuts him a sideways glance, intelligent golden eyes fixing on him. “I’m a stranger. Why are you going so far out of your way for me?” 

Jaskier’s eyebrows go up. “Ah,” he says. “That.” He licks his lips as that gaze burns into him, fixing him to the seat and leaving him feeling a little flustered. The light turns green, and he gently accelerates the car once more. He fidgets with the steering wheel as he gropes for words, searching for some way to explain to Geralt that won’t alarm him unduly. They drive for another few blocks, Geralt waiting with surprising patience for his answer. To be truthful, there were many reasons, but Jaskier ponders until he decides on the most important one. Eventually he says, “In order to answer that…Let me tell you about Fire Island.”

Geralt nods reluctantly, settling back into his seat. So this was going to be a  _ story. _ He grimaces, glancing out the side window. 

“Fire Island was where my family’s summer home was, when I was growing up. Spent every summer there, as far back as I can remember. And, it was home to the Pines, as well as a number of other gay communes, some short distance up the road from my family’s beach house. They were a very popular vacation spot for men from… oh, all over the world. Manhattan mostly, though. When I grew up, I left my parent’s summer home and began to visit the Pines.” 

Falling silent, he considers the road signs before him before flicking on his turn signal, making a quick left. Then he resumes, teeth flashing as a quick grin lights his face. “Lost my virginity there. Had a lot of adventures. Mm, turned eighteen in 1979, which was a truly  _ delightful _ time to be young and beautiful at the Pines.” He laughs wistfully, and even Geralt huffs a short laugh despite himself, taken by the young man’s easy charm. 

“Is this story going to be long?” he asks drily, covering up the smile with a dubious look. 

Jaskier chuckles in response, a little sadly, and shrugs. “Not  _ too _ long, I hope. I’m trying to answer your question the best way that I know how.” Falling silent for a long moment, he chews his lower lip. Geralt turns his head slightly, watching him out of the corner of his eye. 

“It ah… It was two years after that when AIDS was first identified. 1981. I was twenty years old, and fucking was my  _ life. _ ” The grin Jaskier flashes this time is bitter, and Geralt frowns. 

“At least it was, until my friends started dying. Elders. Loved ones. No one knew at first what was causing it…” he heaved a heavy sigh. “Not at first. But ah, Fire Island was later identified as the epicenter of the outbreak on the East Coast. And by then, we were up to our ears in our beloved dead.” His lips tremble a little bit as he presses them together, memory darkening his face. 

“And I ah… well. I came within a breath of dying myself, I’m nearly certain. It… ah. It frightened me very badly. I found myself surrounded by loved ones who the hospitals couldn’t take, wouldn’t treat, couldn’t help.” He presses his lips together again, harder this time, and swallows back a lump forming in his throat. “So I ah…” he trails off, then rallies, voice thick. “At first I stayed with them. I would go to their homes, make sure they had what they needed. Bathe them, after it had gotten so bad they couldn’t walk.” 

Geralt’s jaw tightens as he listens, feeling obscurely guilty. He had heard of the epidemic overseas, had even been, in one particularly memorable briefing, re-educated on condom use. The disease was spoken of mostly in little asides around the bases, harsh jokes about the disease killing faggots. Never spoken on with any thought, or care, or respect. It had eaten at him, but only in a distant sort of way. Somehow the sheer scale of the loss hadn’t occurred to him until he heard the raw ache in Jaskier’s voice.

Jaskier takes a shaky breath, rolling his eyes back up in his head and blinking rapidly for a moment at a stop light. “Sorry love, I haven’t spoken about it in a while. Mm. Well, eventually, that became exhausting. I was a wreck, and I couldn’t sustain bouncing from house to house tending to my loved ones. So…” he rolls his shoulder uncomfortably, grimacing, “I used some family money to purchase the house I live in. I was ah… I was tired of watching queers slip through my fingers without any way to help them when they got kicked out of their homes for being unable to pay rent.  _ Fuck,  _ Geralt, they were dying! How were they supposed to afford housing?! So I ah… I brought them home to me. I retrofitted one of the bedrooms for handicap access, bathroom, everything.” He scrubs his hand over his face, rakes his hair out of his eyes, resumes driving again. 

“And uh, that was my life for a while. Do you know what I used that attic for?” Looking tired, he glances at Geralt, who is staring out the front window of the car with a closed expression on his face. 

“No,” Geralt rumbles, biting back a much ruder response. This display of obvious emotion is making him uncomfortable, and he is not sure what to do about it, but it strikes him that lashing out at his host might not be the best move right now. 

“It was an escape, darling. An escape from all the death and sickness. Sometimes staying down in the house got to be too much, and I would come upstairs and lay down and try to get some sleep. Or a loved one’s partner might take refuge up there for a few hours while I sat downstairs with the one who was dying. And ah, even after… ah. After, when I had no more sick friends to shelter, sometimes I just wanted to make the world smaller. So I would take my instruments up there and enjoy the quiet of the space… it’s easier to compose when I’m not thinking about how I need to do the dishes, you know?” When he speaks about his music his face eases, lighting up just a little. “And now? Well. The thought of watching one more man suffer is unbearable. So I help. Where I can.” He finally turns back to Geralt, watching as the amber-eyed man turns to look at him, meeting his gaze for a brief moment before looking down thoughtfully at his hands in his lap. 

Geralt is quiet for a moment, digesting the story carefully. Then he asks, voice harsher than he means it to be, “Are you sick?”

Jaskier frowns, about to take offense until he sees the look on Geralt’s face. It isn’t judging, or angry… If anything, the man looks lost. His frown softens, and slowly he shakes his head. “No, darling. No… I don’t know how, but no.” Licking his bottom lip nervously again, he pulls around the corner and into the hospital complex, beginning to hunt for a space. “I get tested every three months or so… started in 1982.” He blows out a breath and shakes his head, another quick bittersweet smile flitting about his face. “Always clean. It’s been thirteen years now. I thought someday the fear would…” he pauses, searching for words, shrugging uneasily. “That it would get better. But it never does. Even now when I’ve been in a bit of a dry spell, it never really leaves me.” 

“Dry spell?” Geralt asks skeptically, seizing on what he hopes is a way to change the subject. Jaskier, to his surprise, laughs. The man laughs easily and often, even in sadness, and Geralt isn’t sure what to make of it. 

“Yes, darling. Been a few months since I met anyone special… I’ve gotten busy, and, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, perhaps a bit too old to be sowing so many wild oats anymore.” He pulls into a parking space near the emergency department. “There. Now, would you prefer for me to wait out here, or shall I walk you in?”

Geralt regards Jaskier with a wooden face, concealing his profound discomfort. “You don’t have to stay. I can get a taxi after I’m done here, I don’t need you.”

Jaskier waves this off. “Nonsense, Geralt. I said I had the afternoon off and I meant it. I’ll be here when you come out, ok?” He stops, chewing his lip, a worried look flickering across his face as he sees Geralt’s face darken. “I mean… I’m sorry to press. I just.” Stopping again, he twists his hands around the leather of the steering wheel nervously. “I can go. If you don’t want me to stay.” 

A long silence stretches out between them as Geralt rests his hand on the door handle, wrestling with the choice. He watches the lanky man out of the corner of his eye, feeling guilty, lonely, and confused as he tries to figure out what  _ he _ wants. It’s not a question he’s had to ask himself all that often in his life, and it takes him a while to speak. 

“No point in staying out here the whole time. Takes hours.” And with that, he abruptly gets out of the car with his pack and slams the door behind him, striding away towards the emergency department. Jaskier watches him go, mouth gaping in astonishment as Geralt’s long legs eat up the distance like it’s nothing. As the big man vanishes into the hospital, Jaskier startles into motion, scrambling free of the car to follow him. 


	6. I Wanted to Get Lost, So I Got Lost in You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Geralt finally gets a splint, a new mystery is revealed, and things get a little out of hand when Jaskier cooks Geralt dinner. There is smut ahead!

The hospital had mostly been a long, quiet sit in the cool waiting room for Jaskier. Sitting there together had given him time to gently extract from Geralt that the man had a small storage unit which he needed to empty out before the lease expired. By the end of the wait to be seen, he had managed to convince Geralt to let him help, a minor miracle which he spent the remaining time in the waiting room thanking the Universe for. Geralt had insisted that he would find his own place as quickly as possible, but Jaskier hadn't been fussed over it. 

At one point, he had gone to the cafeteria and grabbed a sandwich and coffee, rapidly scarfing them down before racing back to make sure he hadn’t missed Geralt. He hadn’t. It had been easily another hour after that before the man re-emerged from the back room, injured hand now splinted and taped, holding discharge instructions in the other. He looked calmer than he had before, stood straighter, and Jaskier couldn’t help but admire how handsome he was from across the room. The man was  _ big, _ more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders, his long arms and legs corded with heavy muscle. His short-cropped white hair and amber eyes made his already good-looking face striking, stubble and all. Even the way he moved was captivating, sure and graceful, more like a dancer than a warrior. 

As Geralt scanned the room, Jaskier had risen and walked over to him, an easy smile on his face. Geralt’s eyes had locked onto the movement as the other man approached, his face betraying nothing. Unperturbed, Jaskier had immediately begun chattering, walking with him out of the emergency department. Geralt had bought himself a quick bite at the cafeteria, and after he was done, they had headed to the storage unit. 

When they arrive at the unit, Geralt leads him through a metal orange mesh gate into a sparse hallway lined with numbered doors. He stops at one and pulls a key out of his wallet, opening the door. The storage unit is tiny. Jaskier looks on in mild dismay as he watches Geralt push a door open onto a unit barely larger than a closet, revealing a dusty collection of items stacked neatly inside. Almost everything is concealed in crisp cardboard boxes with folded cardboard lids, marked in a loopy scrawl. The writing is quite legible upon closer inspection, but it doesn’t look that way at first glance. 

The first thing Geralt removes from the unit, delicately, is a file box marked simply, “Correspondence.” With the air of holding something precious, he very gently sets it aside. Boxes marked, “Clothing, Dress Uniform, Shoes, Dress Shoes, and Personal Files,” all follow in quick succession. These he hands to Jaskier, piling as many into his arms as he can safely carry. The others he sets aside to wait for the next trip. Jaskier juggles them carefully, turning and heading away to his car parked nearby.

He very carefully sets them aside and opens up his trunk, then begins to stack the boxes carefully towards the back. It doesn’t look like Geralt has much. His heart squeezes as he realizes it will all fit into his car in one trip. Somehow, he thinks, a life ought to be bigger than that. 

Back inside, Geralt gazes at the storage unit pensively, eyeing the remains of his old life before him. There isn’t much. Most of the cardboard boxes are labeled “Books,” and they are too heavy for him to comfortably move with his injury. These, he leaves. 

There are a few, more precious things that he attends to personally, though. Near a box sequestered in the hallway which was labeled “Correspondence,” he adds two more boxes. One marked with a large “C,” and the other with a large “Y.” This unearths the most striking item of them all, a hand-carved wooden chest. It is of medium size, maybe two and a half feet long by one foot deep, graven with an elegant Slavic pattern of flowers around the outside edges. Above the lock, the chest bears the carved legend, “Rivii.” This he tenderly removes from the storage unit as well, setting it near the other precious boxes. 

The visit to the emergency room meant that they arrived at the storage unit late in the day. The storage unit is about to close, and he doesn’t have time to linger on any one item. That will have to wait until later. He extracts one final box from the unit, marked, “Videos and Recordings,” and sets it aside in the hall. By the time he has done this, Jaskier has returned for another load. Together, they silently empty the rest of the unit into Jaskier’s vehicle. The boxes of books all fit in the trunk, and the more delicate boxes Geralt himself places in the back seat of the vehicle, painstakingly arranging them so that they will not be damaged in transit. He is careful to keep Jaskier away from these, allowing only his hands to touch them. 

Finally, the unit is empty. Geralt feels empty too, standing there looking at it, feeling like his heart has been scooped out of his chest. Now that he has touched everything, seen all the reminders of what he has lost, it is becoming more real to him. As he closes the door one last time and turns away to return the key to the office, his face is tight with grief. 

Jaskier waits in the car, sitting next to the man’s backpack, surrounded by the soft dusty smells of Geralt’s stored boxes. There is an oddly floral odor coming from one of them, but he can’t quite place it. He sits in nervous silence, studying the door to the storage complex in the mirror, and finds himself relieved when Geralt emerges at last carrying a printed receipt. Their car ride back to Jaskier’s home is largely quiet, aside from a brief agreement that tomorrow they would discuss Geralt’s next steps. When they arrive, they silently bundle the contents up the stairs into the loft. 

When Jaskier tries to help him unload the remainder of the backseat, however, Geralt barks, “Stop! Don’t touch that.” Fixing him with a glare, he delicately removes the box, “C,” from Jaskier’s hands. He looms over the younger man, face dark and stormy.

Jaskier backs away, putting his hands up to show that he meant no harm. He can see the borderline rage in Geralt’s eyes and immediately knows that he’s crossed some sort of invisible line. Chagrined, he says, “I’m sorry. I’ll leave them. I just thought they looked heavy…” he sighs. “Didn’t want you to hurt your hand. Uh. I think aside from the back seat, that’s everything. Do you need anything else before dinner?” 

Geralt eyes him, fierce gaze slowly relaxing as Jaskier backs off. He considers the question carefully, clutching the box close to his chest like it contains his heart. Finally, he asks, “Do you want me to lock the car when I’m done?” 

“Yes, darling, if you would do that I’d be ever so grateful.” Jaskier looks between Geralt and the stairs one last time, debating how much to push helping him carry the heavier items up to the loft. In the end, his better sense wins out and he turns away. “Right. I've got some cleaning to do first, so dinner should be ready in about two hours. See you then?” He waits until Geralt cautiously nods, relieved to see that the glare has eased off of Geralt’s handsome face. Jaskier smiles at him awkwardly before he walks away, a little flustered, barely dodging around the corner of his house without knocking into it. 

Shaking his head, Jaskier mutters to himself as he walks up the ramp onto his small porch and unlocks his door. He pushes into his house and sighs, shedding his shoes by the door before padding into the interior. 

The lower half of the walls are brick, the upper half golden polished wood paneling that holds the light of the space warmly. Hung on the walls are lutes of all sorts, as well as little framed pieces of poetry and pieces of theater scripts printed and varnished to wood, displayed like fine art. There is a couch and a television near the door, and straight back from the door is an open bedroom, empty and unruffled. Further back, there is a closed door that leads to Jaskier’s own room, and a spacious living area that extends into a full kitchen with white cabinets and an island with tall stools. The whole space is impeccably free of dirt, but has a rumpled, lived-in feeling. There are papers sitting on the arm of the couch, a book left carelessly open on the island, a drift of socks abandoned by the door. He looks around critically for a moment before seizing the papers, beginning to clean the space. 

Outside, Geralt tenderly treks up and down the stairs. He brings every single personal box into the loft, arranging it across from his bed in a neat stack where he can see them as he sits. The book boxes are stacked across the room, under the window, and his spare clothing is near the dressers themselves. The last box that he brings upstairs is marked, “Correspondence,” and this he sets carefully on the bed before returning to lock the car. 

He stands at the bottom of the stairs after he has done this, fingering the keys, looking up at the white door far above him. Through it, memories await him. The feeling presses down on him, and this time he welcomes it, welcomes the heavy weight of all the history held in the attic. Every choice, every turn he has made has brought him to this point. It’s time to go take a look. 

He mounts the stairs with heavy strides, unlocks the door, and sets the keys aside on the shelf above the mugs. Then he walks over and settles with a soft creak of bedsprings onto the mattress next to the box “Correspondence.” This he opens tenderly, setting the lid aside with great care. Inside are manila file folders, and inside of those, letters, organized by date. The first bundle, filed under “Y,” are all loose paper tucked neatly into folders to preserve them. 

The next set, though, under “C,” are all individually bagged in little plastic baggies, carefully wrapped and sealed. He lifts one of these out first, opening the bag. It is one of his favorites. Sticking his nose inside, he breathes in the sharp scent of orange peel. Then he opens the paper, well-worn from opening and closing, and inside is not a letter, but a picture. It is simple, a tall stick figure with a blue head and body sticking out of green clothing that a child had obviously intended to be fatigues. Next to it, a little blond stick figure, spiky hair standing all around its grinning face. At the top, in wild uneven letters, “Daddy and Me!” His face falls, becoming serious as he traces his fingers over the paper. He can smell the orange oil, the wax of the crayons, the stale construction paper it was drawn on, feel the bumpiness of the wax and fiber under his fingers. Bringing it to his face, he closes his eyes and inhales again, listening to the soft rustle of the paper as he does so. He rests with his face in the drawing, feeling a lump rise in his throat. 

After a heavy, silent moment, he very carefully folds the paper away, tucking it back into its envelope and sealing the plastic bag to preserve the scent. He delicately places it back into its dated folder (July 1988) and considers the box, eyes playing over the other folders. Finally, he selects another, pulling it out. Another child's drawing, another smell; Lavender. And again another drawing, another smell. Cloves. He smiles sadly and folds the drawing away before he turns to the front of the box, eyeing the contents.

First he selects a letter from a well-thumbed folder right towards the front of the box. On it is written Y December 1983. Opening it, he selects a page from the middle of the folder, which contains several letters in date order. He pulls this one out very, very carefully, careful not to disturb the lock of dark hair taped to it. This letter he brings to his face, too, inhaling the sharp scent of lilac and gooseberry that is richly embedded in the curl of hair taped to the page. He brushes it lightly against his cheek, brings it down and strokes his fingers delicately along it. His throat squeezes shut as he does so. Guilt rises from where he had buried it, shame, terrible gnawing loneliness. The soft twist of hair in his fingers brings it all home to him, and he sinks into the feelings, pulling searing breaths into his aching chest. 

He puts the letter back in the chest unread. He doesn't need to, he has it memorized. Others he thumbs through more carefully, reading and re-reading the words written in precise strokes, reporter’s shorthand, a series of dashes and swoops and squiggles that he decodes with the ease of long practice. His hands feel thick, heavy and numb as he reads, places a letter back, pulls out another. Finally he reaches the most recent one, (Y September 1993,) and pulls it out. This one, out of all of them, bears the strongest scent. It wafts heavily over him as he opens it, scanning the contents with sad eyes. When he is finished he lowers the letter to his knees and puts his face in his hand, feeling lost in sorrow. 

The letters are one of the closest things he’s ever had to a sense of home. But right now, instead of bringing comfort, they bring a snarling ache that threatens to choke him. These letters were sent to someone trustworthy, someone stable, someone to depend on. Now, he isn’t sure he deserves to have them. Carefully, he sets the letter back in its folder and fits the cardboard lid back on the box, head whirling. They deserve better than what he has given them. Maybe he is better off dead. At least that way there would be some sort of closure for them, instead of this clusterfuck of a life gone suddenly astray.

The ache washes up and swallows him, and he sits in the darkness of it for a long time. His arm rests lightly on the box as he sucks in one slow, excruciating breath after another. It’s hard to tell, in the dim of the attic, how long he sits there overcome. He doesn’t fight it, knows he deserves every lick of guilt and sorrow he is feeling, sinks into it until he vanishes inside of it. 

A loud BANG from below startles him out of his reverie, followed by a howled, muffled, “FUCK!” He startles upright, grabbing the attic keys and barrelling down the stairs before he can think twice. At the bottom of the steps he hesitates, remembers the direction that Jaskier took earlier that day, runs around the side of the house, and bursts in the front door without knocking. He doesn’t know what he expects to see, but Jaskier sitting on the floor laughing amidst the remains of a small shelf is… not it. He stands in the doorway, wild-eyed, staring at the laughing man on the floor. 

“Oh, Geralt! Fuck, I’m sorry!” Jaskier calls, picking his way upright amongst the scattered remains of shelf and figurine that he is sitting in the middle of. “I’m okay! Everything is okay!” He flails his arms expansively as he rises, complaining, “I swore I told Jeremy to hang that damn thing on a stud, but did he  _ listen?  _ Noo _ ooo, _ he did not!” 

As he gestures toward the wall, Geralt sees a raw gash in the wood paneling where the shelf must have hung. Looking down once more, he can see amongst the broken pieces of shelf are tiny wooden figurines, musical instruments and little dolls caught in moments of passionate dance. Many of them are in pieces. He hesitates by the door as he watches Jaskier pick and hop his way on sock feet out of the mess, hair in his eyes, a crooked grin lighting his face. 

Jaskier shakes his hair out of his eyes, turning to Geralt and fixing him with an embarrassed smile. “God, this is not how I wanted to welcome you into my house. Like, BANG! Hello, I’m a disaster!” He laughs nervously, raking his hair out of his eyes again with a long hand. 

Geralt shakes his head, stepping the rest of the way inside and cautiously closing the door. “Are you hurt?” he asks, his voice more gravelly than usual from residual grief and sorrow. He can tell Jaskier can hear it in his voice because the other man’s face falls as he speaks. 

“I’m fine,” he reassures, glancing at the wall and then the shelf on the floor, before his gaze returns to Geralt standing by the door. His voice is quieter now, taking on a gentle tone. “I was just trying to dust the fucking shelf, like the clever idiot I am, and it just…” He waves his hands, “Ugh! Came right out of the wall. Teach me to try and clean up for company.” Sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, he eyes the big man, taking in his tense posture, the shadowed look on his face. “Um. Are you all right? I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything…” sighing, he sweeps some of the debris aside with his foot, throws up his hands, turns to grab a broom, watching Geralt out of the corner of his eye as he waits for an answer. 

“I’m fine,” Geralt grunts automatically, stuffing the attic keys into the pocket of his fatigues. He strides across the room and begins picking up pieces of shelf, getting them out of the way of Jaskier’s broom. 

Embarrassed, Jaskier tries to wave him off. “Oh no, you’re my guest, please don’t-” he breaks off as golden eyes fix on him, stealing away whatever he meant to say. The look Geralt is giving him can only be described as, ‘Are you an idiot or are you going to let me help you?’ His eyebrow is raised, lips set in a thin, crooked line that Jaskier finds very charming. Jaskier bubbles into silence, puffs, and then shakes his head in surrender. Geralt looks quietly satisfied as Jaskier turns away to retrieve a trash can. 

Between the two of them, they make short work of clearing the floor. The large pieces of shelf are binned immediately. The figurines take a little bit longer, sorting the intact and salvageable ones from the wreckage. Finally, Geralt holds the dust pan as Jaskier sweeps the last of the rubbish into it. Geralt dumps it into the trash can and then rises, dusting off his hands and looking over the other man critically, eyes sweeping him from head to toe. There are no obvious injuries. Aside from looking a bit ruffled, Jaskier is definitely in one piece.

Jaskier bears the scrutiny quietly, waiting until Geralt is done before speaking again. “Well. That was a fucking disaster, sorry again, darling.” He smiles a bright, sunny smile, “I don’t know about you, but after that I could use some wine. Care to join me?” Gesturing at the kitchen island, he turns away with the broom and trash can. “Shoes off, please.” 

Geralt nods shortly, retreating to the door to remove his shoes. Now that his hand is splinted properly, the whole process is much smoother. Straightening, he looks around the room again, taking it in more fully this time. The room is warm and bright, cleaner than he expected, the oak floors shiny and recently swept. The air is suffused with the smell of good cooking, roasted garlic and bread yeast and browned butter. 

He cautiously walks on sock feet across the big room to the open kitchen, noticing books on low bookshelves that cover the walls from hip height down. Most of them are history books, books of poetry, books of plays. There is an open area near the kitchen with a big round braided rug in the middle of it, and there is a chair next to a music stand and a large lute, which has a stand of its own. There is a rumpled looking composition book open on the stand, with blocky hand-written medieval style notation in the middle and scribbled notes in various colors of ink along the sides. 

Jaskier places a large glass of red wine on the island as he approaches, sliding it towards him with a smile. “Here, darling. You look like you could use this. Rough trip down memory lane?” He turns away before Geralt can answer, returning to the stove to check on the gravy bubbling away in a skillet. 

Geralt scowls as he slides onto one of the tall stools lining the outer edge of the kitchen island. He grunts noncommittally as he picks up his glass and takes a big swallow of his wine, unwilling to be drawn into conversation about it. The wine cuts across his tongue, bitter and complex, with a surprising sweet finish right at the very end. Surprised, he eyes the glass and takes another, slower sip, raising his eyes to watch as Jaskier moves around the kitchen. 

“Sorry, love. Shouldn’t have asked, it’s none of my business,” Jaskier says calmly, flashing a little half-smile over his shoulder at the brooding man behind him. “Shall I leave the bottle on the table? I’ve got plenty,” he says, gesturing at a little rack nearby on the counter. It is hand carved wood, with a buttercup motif, and stocked full with dark bottles of wine. “White, red, even zinfandel if you really want it.” 

Geralt nods cautiously, face guarded. This is really the last place he should be, given how he’d ended up here in the first place. His stupid dick had brought him nothing but trouble, and he feels uneasy in the house of a man this attractive after all the fallout sex has caused in his life. But… the house is cozy, and full of the smell of comforting food. He has nowhere else to go, at least for the night. And, deep down, he aches to stay in the warmth of it for just a little longer. So, he shifts back and forth on his stool, drains his wine glass, and settles cautiously in to watch Jaskier cook. 

Jaskier places the bottle of wine in the middle of the island, waves a vague “help yourself” gesture, and heads to the refrigerator without another word. He gets the sense that Geralt is very tightly wound right now, and so he lets him drink in peace as he finishes making their evening meal. There will be time to talk later. 

Geralt is grateful for the silence as he pours himself another glass and takes a large swallow, feeling the warmth of the alcohol seep across the raw pain inside of him. Relieved to find some sort of reprieve, he takes another gulp. The wine is good, but chasing the feeling of numbness that it will eventually bring is better. He feels vaguely like he should be savoring it more, but the idea of slowing down like that right now, of feeling his body enough to taste something when it’s in such a state of sorrow, is too much. So he gulps it, pours himself another, and finds his eyes drifting across the way to Jaskier’s quick, clever hands. 

Cooking has always struck him as demeaning, something best left confined to the kitchen at the back of a mess hall. While necessary, certainly, it was there for people lower on the chain of command to worry about. Learning how to cook had been irrelevant to him, and aside from some experience in gutting and roasting animals out in the field, Geralt had been content to leave it at that. But as he watches Jaskier chop vegetables, humming softly to himself, he begins to wonder if he has missed something. 

The lovely man’s long, clever hands are graceful as he wields the knife, dumping carrot, onion, and eventually celery into a pan to sear. There is a kind of music to his movements, an orderliness and precision that Geralt finds appealing. He loses himself in the quiet song of Jaskier’s cooking, guilt and shame blurring into a kind of numb quietness, the alcohol a warm glow in the pit of his empty stomach. He lets himself sink into the wine, the melody of the kitchen, allowing it to lull him into a hollow state of quietude. When the bottle is empty, Jaskier replaces it without a word. 

A timer goes off, and Jaskier slaps it off before bending to retrieve fresh rolls from the oven. The steamy, yeasty smell makes Geralt’s stomach growl, and he shifts in his chair, mildly embarrassed. Jaskier smiles to himself, setting the hot tray aside on a cooling rack before beginning to set the kitchen island for dinner. He adds plates, forks, knives, his movements easy and comfortable. Pausing to take a long swallow of his own wine, he looks the spread over and considers. Then he adds the salt and pepper shakers, butter dish, and an olive oil and vinegar set. Seemingly satisfied, he sets to bringing the food next. 

A generous ceramic bowl full of salad arrives first, followed by a boat of silky, heavenly smelling gravy. Then he grabs the plates, piling them high with herbed roasted potatoes crusted in garlic, golden brown chicken breasts, and a generous helping of skilfully seared vegetables that he covers the chicken in. He places this in front of Geralt with a smile, then turns his attention to the rolls. Carefully he loosens them from the tray with a spatula and then flips them into a big wooden bowl with a clean dish towel in it as Geralt watches, fascinated. They tumble into the bowl with little hollow noises, speaking of a crispy, well-made crust. 

Looking very pleased with himself, Jaskier transfers the full bowl of rolls to the table, plunking it down with finality. He takes another long swallow of wine as he considers the table one last time, then exclaims, “Ah! Napkins.”

Geralt is mildly startled by the exclamation, and covers it with another gulp of wine as the younger man sets a few cloth napkins on the table, tucking them under the silverware.

“There,” he says, beaming. “That’s everything, I think. Hungry?” He pulls up a stool and sits himself diagonally across from Geralt, setting his wine down next to his plate. 

Geralt nods reluctantly, eyeing the spread before him with a torn expression on his face. On the one hand, it looks…  _ amazing. _ He’s not sure he remembers the last time he was in front of a meal that smelled this good. On the other hand, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that he does not deserve the effort Jaskier has put into making it. Geralt scowls, leaning back from his plate. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” he says shortly. He takes another long swallow of wine. 

Jaskier huffs, waving the statement off. “Nonsense. It’s a pleasure to have a guest to cook for, usually it’s just me.” He smiles easily, picking up his knife and fork and cutting into his chicken. “I love to cook like this but I don’t usually have the excuse,” he explains around a mouthful, looking up at Geralt, blue eyes sparkling. “Thank you for giving me one.”

Geralt, taken aback, just nods. He sits there awkwardly, holding his wine glass and wishing that he could vanish. The wine has blurred the guilt considerably, but there is still the gnawing feeling of knowledge that he should be anywhere but here. Shouldn’t be letting this kind man feed him, shouldn’t feel so hot under his skin when he fixes him with one of those radiant smiles. As hungry as he is, he can’t escape the sensation that he somehow should be walking away from this.

Jaskier doesn’t comment on his obvious consternation, just offers him the basket of rolls. “Do you want honey?” he inquires mildly. “I’m sure I have some around here somewhere.” 

Geralt shakes his head, color creeping up his cheeks. He takes one of the proffered rolls and breaks it open with his thumbs, inhaling the hot, yeasty steam from within. His stomach growls again, louder this time, and his willpower buckles. The food smells  _ too _ good, and he can’t make himself say no. Ducking his head slightly, he grabs the butterknife from the dish and spreads a thick wedge of butter onto his roll, watching it begin to melt almost immediately. He feels a curious kinship with the butter, melting and rolling away into the bread as the heat unravels it. 

Satisfied, Jaskier smiles and puts the bowl back on the table before resuming his own meal. “I have a little sherbet around here for dessert, if you end up still being hungry,” he says, watching Geralt tentatively take a bite from his hot roll. “And there’s plenty more chicken and vegetables in the pan, too. I always make too much.” A quick grin flashes across his face. “Keep cooking like I’m feeding six, even when it’s just me. You’d think I’d have a better eye for proportions,” he gently teases, and is rewarded by a little quirk at the corner of Geralt’s lips. 

“Hmm,” Geralt hums around his roll, feeling the corners of his eyes crinkle despite himself. Once he gets the first bite in, he finally feels _ how  _ acutely hungry he is. His distress had numbed him to how bad it was, but now that he can feel it he realizes he is famished. He serves himself gravy and salad, then he sets to eating, quiet and serious. The food vanishes with astonishing speed as Jaskier looks on. 

“Good?” Jaskier teases lightly again, pleased. The big man is acting half-starved and is obviously stressed. It feels nice to provide him with a warm meal and a quiet place to be. He watches as Geralt nods and grunts an affirmative, wiping a chunk of hot roll through a puddle of gravy. Jaskier sips at his wine, rolling it around on his tongue and enjoying the busy quiet of Geralt eating. 

Some time later Geralt breaks the silence, asking, “Where did you learn to cook like this? It’s fucking amazing.” 

Jaskier beams, thrilled. “I learned when I was a child. Couldn’t get me out from underfoot in the kitchen, so the chef started putting me to work.” He scoops up a big mouthful of roasted vegetables and chicken, sighing contentedly as he enjoys the richness of them. 

“Chef?” Geralt inquires, incredulous. “How rich  _ are _ you?” 

“Not me, darling. My parents.” Jaskier shrugs, poking a cucumber. “Old money from Europe. Pankratz Enterprises _ ,  _ ugh! I don’t even know what they’re up to, half the time, and frankly I think I’m happier that way.” Washing this down with a long swallow of wine, he continues, “Certainly had enough for a personal chef, but, ah, we’re not billionaires or anything. My mother was a busy woman, and, well, she hated cooking, so my father fixed it the way he always does. Easier to pay someone than to care, right?” he says, a wistful smile playing about his lips. “Honestly, I’ve spent most of my life trying to escape it. It’s easier for me to care than to pay for things, and I much prefer it that way.” His face closes down, and he stabs the cucumber with his fork.

“Better than my old man. Wouldn’t pay for a fucking thing if his life depended on it, and couldn’t care even if he tried to.” Geralt finds himself chuckling, shaking his head. 

Jaskier looks up, a half-grin lighting his features, pleased that Geralt has finally decided to talk a little more. “What, the colonel? Didn’t he adopt you?”

“Yup,” Geralt grunts, then chows down on a huge bite of chicken. Swallowing, he continues, “Last kind thing he ever did before turning into a giant hardass. Made for a magical childhood.” 

“What, no misty summers by the lake?” Jaskier says dryly. 

Geralt snorts, shaking his head. “Hell no. That man saw a vacation once and sent it out to the firing squad. It was never fucking heard from again.” 

Jaskier laughs quietly, nodding. “Sounds like our fathers would have gotten along, then. I remember mine mostly as an aggravated voice from behind an office door I was forbidden to open, when he was there at all. Ah, always felt the love when he was telling me to get a fucking life instead of playing in the yard.”

“I thought he took you to Fire Island every summer,” Geralt inquires, shooting Jaskier a quick curious look. His cheeks are flushed now, warmed by the food and the wine. His shoulders have relaxed, and his long body drapes comfortably on the stool as he eats.

Jaskier smiles fondly at him, gratified to see him finally relaxing. “Well… I  _ went _ to Fire Island every summer. Plenty of misty shores to be had, I suppose, but he was rarely ever there to enjoy them with us. Bastard wouldn’t know a good time if it sat up and bit his ass in the night, I swear.” Geralt laughs at this, a real, genuine laugh. The deep bass of it is something Jaskier feels in his chest. It makes his stomach do a warm, pleasant roll as he listens to it. He would give anything to hear it again. 

“They  _ would _ get along,” Geralt flashes a brief grin which exposes sharp canines, nudging his last few vegetables together with his fork. “Man couldn’t stand fun, thought it was,” and he pauses, changing his voice to imitate his adopted father’s, harsh and full of contempt, “For sissies and cocksuckers.”

“Oh, my god,” Jaskier groans laughingly, “Stop! Oh help! What an asshole! They absolutely would have gotten along, that’s terrible!” He imitates his own father, growling, “If you don’t stop acting like such a faggot, Julian, no one’s going to hire you. Someday you’ll have to settle down and get  _ serious. _ Ugh!” He flaps his hands, waving the ugly words away. “I swear to God, if I never have to hear that again it will be too soon.” He takes a long swallow of wine, licks a drop away from his lip, and continues, “Besides. I should think I’ve done quite well for myself. I live a good life, despite anything he has to say about it.”

Geralt glances over at Jaskier, eyes playing over his face. He grows quiet, the smile falling slowly off of his face. Softly he asks, “Are you happy?” His eyes drop to his half empty wine glass, which he twirls between his fingers.

“Brrr, what a question,” Jaskier says, puffing out a breath as he ponders. “Happy? I think so, darling. I’m certainly happier than I was trying to please him, that’s for sure. I live a good life. I keep good books on a business I love running, I teach, I compose. I always thought the happiness would come along in there somewhere if I kept at it,” he trails off, swirling his wine and eyeing it critically. “At the end of the day, what’s important is that I’m living a life where I feel good getting up in the morning. That’s always helped me keep going.” 

Geralt frowns, pushing a leaf around his otherwise empty plate. “Were you ever not doing that?”

Jaskier looks up at him, guilt flickering briefly across his kind features as he realizes that Geralt probably can’t say the same for himself. Many soldiers couldn’t. He tilts his head to the side, watching Geralt fiddle with the lettuce. 

“Ah, well… yes, I tried to be a different person to get his love. But... If you watch enough people die, sometimes it lights a fire under you. Hell,  _ I _ should have died. I should be dead right now! I can’t believe I escaped it. It made me want to seize life in both hands and wring the juice out of it! I didn’t want another moment to go by without putting my full heart into it.”

The look Geralt gives his plate breaks Jaskier’s heart a little. Embarrassed, he stands up, clearing the leftovers away. Then he goes and rummages in the freezer. “Do you want the sherbet? It’s peach, a friend of mine made it. Quite tasty.”

“What kind of friend makes peach sherbet?” Geralt grumbles skeptically, sitting back to watch Jaskier hunt through his freezer. 

“Very gay ones, generally,” Jaskier jokes. “Ah! Here it is.” He pulls out a large plastic Tupperware and flourishes it before setting it on the counter. “Seriously though, Aiden is a wonderful chef. He works at a restaurant out on the water and he always sends me the results of his forays into new desserts.” He pops it open and grabs a spoon, stealing a mouthful and moaning contentedly. “ _ Mmm. _ Summer was good to the peach trees this year, this really is stunning.” Quickly, he serves up two little glass tumblers full of sherbet and sets one in front of Geralt without further ceremony. 

Geralt eyes the cold glass by his elbow, making no move to pick it up yet. He is silent for a moment, then licks his lips and asks, “Is he your boyfriend?”

“Who, Aiden? God, no,” Jaskier says with his back turned, rummaging for spoons. “Well. Not for a long time, anyway. That was years ago. No boyfriends for a while, darling… Aha!” He turns back, flourishing two silver spoons with buttercups stamped on the end. “My favorite dessert spoons, I knew I still had them hidden somewhere.” He plunks one of them firmly into the sherbet in Geralt’s glass and takes the other with him, sinking back onto his stool and curling his long legs up under him to rest on one of the stool’s lower bars. Taking another bite, his lashes flutter against his cheeks in obvious pleasure as his tongue curls around the melting sherbet. 

Geralt watches, fascinated despite himself, as Jaskier savors the sherbet. When Jaskier’s eyes open, he quickly drops his gaze, pulling his own sherbet close, as much for something to do with his hands as anything else. Tentatively he pokes at the dessert. He notes its unusually creamy texture and rich scent; even frozen, it has a bright and fruity smell. Tempted, he finally tries a spoonful, avoiding Jaskier’s eyes. The rich flavor of real, fresh peaches explodes across his tongue, so intense he can practically smell the damn things ripening on trees in the sunlight. He hums softly in surprised pleasure, looking at the little glass tumbler with new respect. 

“Wow.” 

“Wow is  _ right _ . Mm! I’m glad you like it.” Jaskier sighs contentedly, taking another spoonful. “I think it tastes like summer.”

Geralt grunts, unimpressed by the sentiment, but at the same time finding himself unable to argue. The creamy sherbet is too good. As he eats, he watches Jaskier out of the corner of his eye. The man is unselfconscious as he enjoys his dessert, comfortably sensual as he licks drips of sherbet from his spoon. Geralt’s own sherbet vanishes before he even knows it, a sweet dream of summer lingering on his tongue as he puts his cup down. 

Jaskier puts his own tumbler down and looks at him from under his lashes. “Do you want any coffee before you go back upstairs, darling?” He inquires with a soft little smile playing about his lips. Geralt feels a warm twist deep in his chest, but he shakes his head.

“No, that’s alright,” he says, pushing away from the counter. His heart is beginning to pick up speed, and he feels like he has suddenly begun suffocating. The sensation makes him want to flee. “I should go…” He stops as Jaskier rises from his stool, hovering uncertainly. The warm feeling twists again more sharply, and his stomach does a flip.

Jaskier just smiles, gesturing towards the door. “That’s fine, it’s been a long day. I’ll walk you to the door.” 

Flustered, Geralt nods and makes his way to the door, feeling the heat of Jaskier close behind him. His stomach is now mercilessly fluttering, and as he approaches the door, his palms begin to sweat, just a little. He bends to put his boots back on and then turns to the door. Feeling a warmth at his elbow, he turns back to find Jaskier standing close, head tilted slightly back, cheeks flushed with wine. His blue eyes sparkle merrily as he smiles up at Geralt.

“Good night, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow and we’ll talk more,” he says, tongue unconsciously darting across his lower lip. Geralt’s eyes track it, unable to help himself, and he nods. His eyes flicker as he looks from Jaskier’s lips to meet his gaze. As their eyes lock, he feels like he’s been struck by lighting, like he is rooted to the spot and alive with the electricity of it. Jaskier hesitates, studying his face intently, then delicately leans forward. With a sigh, Geralt finds himself leaning in like he’s been magnetized, and their lips brush softly together. A huge spark of heat goes through both of them as they come into contact, and Geralt moans helplessly. The kiss feels like suicide, a gunshot blowing him apart. The heat of it feels like dying, and he never wants it to stop.

Reeling, he hesitantly brings his left hand up to cradle Jaskier’s cheek and brings his head closer, keeping the heat of the kiss for just another moment. If this was dying, it was a hell of a way to go. The soft heat against his lips feels unreal, searing into him and lighting him on fire from the inside out.

Jaskier hums in quiet approval and steps in carefully, feeling Geralt’s warmth all along his body as he moves in close. His hands reach up, one cupping Geralt’s neck and the other resting on his chest for balance, his lips parting slightly. Dizzy with the sweetness of it, Geralt gently presses in. Their mouths slide together, and Geralt tongues delicately into Jaskier’s mouth, tasting peaches. Jaskier sighs, making a high reedy note of pleasure that Geralt feels from his head all the way down to his cock. Their mouths move together, gently at first, tasting, exploring. 

As the heat builds, he turns and pushes Jaskier gently up against the door. The initial shock of fear and self loathing is giving way to blinding hunger now, years of pent-up need suddenly roaring to life, and all he wants is to devour him. Feeling like he’s losing his mind, he presses his chest up against Jaskier and tastes him with increasing hunger. Jaskier’s hands slide down Geralt’s sides, finding the belt loops of his fatigues and tangling there, holding himself steady as Geralt devours his mouth. 

As he feels Geralt lean into him, Jaskier draws him closer, pulling the big man up against him until their hips finally come into contact. He is unbelievably hard, dizzy with desire, and he lets out a sharp groan into Geralt’s mouth as their cocks rub up against one another. Geralt’s hips buck and he presses in until their cocks are grinding, letting loose a guttural growl that makes Jaskier’s toes curl. Jaskier melts, holding Geralt against him and whining softly when Geralt rolls his hips again. 

Encouraged, Geralt thrusts harder, giving a heartfelt groan of pleasure. His fingers tangle in soft brown hair (it is  _ so _ soft,) and he can feel his heart hammering in his chest as he licks the sweetness of peaches from the other man’s mouth. Jaskier tugs softly on his hips, urging him gently to move them. A brief shiver of need runs through him, hot and bright, his hard-won filters melting like ice in sunlight. He begins to rut his cock against Jaskier’s, his movements slow, careful, precise. He savors it as Jaskier huffs a soft moan each time he finishes a roll of his hips with a little snap, shoving him back against the door. Jaskier is pliant beneath him, undulating with each thrust of his hips, his moans becoming slowly more urgent. 

Then Jaskier slides his hands up to his chest, splaying his hands across his broad pectorals. Geralt finds himself being pressed back away from the door. Immediately he backs away, worried he has done something wrong, only to find Jaskier following him with a wicked little smile that lights his eyes most delightfully. Jaskier carefully maneuvers Geralt, hands lingering on his chest as he leads him across the big room. As they near the closed door of his bedroom, Geralt eases. He lets Jaskier walk him up against the door, huffing out a guttural gasp as Jaskier presses him up against it and palms his aching cock through his fatigues. 

“Do you like this, love?” Jaskier purrs, rubbing slowly, studying Geralt’s face intently. Geralt stutters out a low hungry groan and nods, captivated. Jaskier smiles slowly, licking his lower lip and then biting it as he looks at Geralt thoughtfully. “ _ Mmm. _ I do, too…” he leans in and tongues softly into Geralt’s mouth, kissing him until they are both panting before drawing back, lifting his hands away. 

“If it gets too much, love, everything stops. Got it?” he says, a little breathless. Taken aback, Geralt nods, scanning Jaskier's face, a look of curious respect entering his fierce golden eyes. He very much appreciates the sentiment, but at this point he doesn’t  _ want _ to stop. The last thing he wants to do is stop. More than anything, he wants to lose himself, to vanish into the heat and never wake back up. 

He tugs Jaskier back in and leans down to kiss him, murmuring into his mouth, “Everything stops. Got it.” Then he kisses him even harder, pulling him up against him with strong arms. The hunger crests over him like a wave, and it’s the last thing he consciously remembers as a haze engulfs him.

Jaskier groans happily, nodding into the kiss, hands coming up to hold onto his shoulders as the big man crushes their bodies together. The song of their kisses makes his heart race, and before long, he is fumbling at the doorknob, opening the door, allowing Geralt into the dark room.

It’s messier in here, more lived in. There are a few crumpled socks scattered across the rug near Jaskier’s bed. The covers are disarranged, the pillows askew, soft sheets reflecting the moonlight. Geralt stumbles back to the bed, sitting when it hits the back of his knees, and Jaskier climbs carefully into his lap. He perches there, knees bracketing Geralt’s hips, and smiles fondly down at him. Geralt looks back up at him, dazed and flushed with pleasure, fingers coming up to explore the contours of his face. 

Jaskier hums as rough fingertips trace the curves of his cheeks, licking and nipping playfully at them as they run over his lips. Feeling drunk with sensation, Geralt lets out a low, breathy chuckle, pausing to let Jaskier curl a tongue around the pad of one callused finger. The feeling of liquid heat, the brushing of teeth against his sensitive fingertip, make him toss his head back and groan at the sheer pleasure of it. Jaskier smiles happily around his finger, running his teeth back and forth across the pad. 

"Ohhhh…" Geralt whispers, hips bucking. Jaskier's smile turns into a grin as he lets his finger go, leaning back to strip off his tank top. He can see Geralt's eyes widen in the moonlight, taking in his hairy chest and soft skin, reeling with pleasure as he breathes in Jaskier’s scent.

Geralt leans forward and noses the hair delicately, whisper soft, opens his mouth and gently traces his lips along the soft curves of Jaskier’s chest. He inhales the smell of his skin, of his sweat, feeling giddy. Tonguing one of Jaskier’s nipples, his pale lashes flutter against his cheeks as he groans at the taste of him. Jaskier’s fingers slide along the short hair of his buzz cut, along his cheeks, along his neck and shoulders, caressing Geralt as his mouth works.

His big, strong hands slide up Jaskier’s sides, coming to rest on his ribs, holding him rock-steady as he tongues his way across Jaskier’s other pectoral, taking his nipple in his mouth and rolling it delicately against his teeth with his tongue until it is hard and just a little swollen. 

Jaskier leans into Geralt’s mouth, keening and moaning softly. His hands lock onto Geralt’s shoulders and he twitches as his nipple is rolled and nibbled, sending shocks straight to his groin. When Geralt pops off of it with a little smack of his lips, Jaskier grins dopily in the darkness at him. 

Geralt, much to his surprise, finds himself smiling back, head swimming. He leans back and pulls his shirt off in one easy movement, tossing it to the floor, then scoots back further up on the bed as Jaskier nudges him. He quickly toes his shoes off and lays back, long and muscular body lit by the moonlight coming in through the lace curtains, watches as Jaskier’s eyes widen at the sight of him. 

Jaskier’s heart stutters and does a double flip as he watches Geralt smoothly remove his shirt, all rippling muscle in the darkness. When he leans back into the bar of light shining through the lace curtains nearby, Jaskier’s eyes widen as he takes in the utter feast of a man laying in his bed. There’s barely a spare ounce of fat anywhere on Geralt’s pale, muscled frame. He is heavily scarred, stark gashes and puckers littering his body. Coarse white hairs cover his chest and arms, catching the light from the window and shining with it. And high up on his shoulder, not visible until he removed his shirt, is a simple black tattoo in the shape of a stylized snarling wolf. Jaskier, unusually, finds himself dithering as he stares at Geralt’s gorgeous body in the moonlight. 

At first, Geralt worries that the wild look on Jaskier’s face is a bad thing. He’s had that, before. He’s a big man, he has too many scars, he knows it can be frightening. A worried look flickers across his face, just barely there, before Jaskier advances on him with a hungry purr that he can feel all the way down to his cock. Jaskier leans forward and slides his hands over Geralt’s chest, devouring the contours of him hungrily with long, sensitive fingers. He rakes his eyes over him, taking in every curve, every scar, eager for all of it. 

Geralt sighs softly as Jaskier caresses him, bringing his hands up to draw the lithe man closer. Jaskier comes willingly, crawling up Geralt’s body and leaning over him until he is laying half across his chest. As their skin brushes together for the first time, Geralt hisses in a little breath of shocked pleasure. The sheer intimacy of it makes him dizzy, makes him ache with the need for more of that soft heat. He wraps his arms carefully around Jaskier, pulling him in against his chest and tipping his head to seek his mouth again.

Jaskier meets him eagerly, kissing him wetly and turning his hips so that he can press his hard cock into Geralt’s firm thigh. They both groan, hips rolling, and Geralt turns so that he is laying on his side next to Jaskier, chests pressed together, legs tangling. He feels himself sinking into an ocean of Jaskier’s mouth, of their cocks grinding together, of the sweet scent of his soft, hot skin. 

They linger there for a long time, locked in a knot of tangled limbs and hungry mouths, hands exploring, hands caressing. Finally, Geralt can’t stand it anymore and reaches for the button of Jaskier’s shorts, fumbling awkwardly in the darkness. Jaskier hums urgently, reaching down to help him, and together they make quick work of them, tossing them off to the side without a second thought. Then they turn to Geralt’s fatigues, clumsy but eager, and they follow Jaskier’s shorts. Last they shed their socks in a quick, awkward tangle of limbs before tumbling back to the bed. 

Groaning at the pure indulgence of feeling Jaskier’s bare legs tangling with his own, Geralt reaches down and tentatively wraps his hand around Jaskier’s aching, dripping cock. Jaskier rolls his head back and lets out a throaty moan, his hands splaying across Geralt’s broad chest. Encouraged, Geralt leans forward and begins to mouth along Jaskier’s neck, tasting salt and breathing deeply of the scent of him. His hand tightens and he begins to stroke his cock, firm and careful. 

“Oh, fuck yes darling, that’s so good,” Jaskier gasps, eyes rolling back in his head as Geralt twists his wrist just  _ so. _ At this rate he isn’t going to last long. The smile that flickers across Geralt’s face when he looks at him again is pure magic, making Jaskier’s hips buck involuntarily in response. His hand drifts down and he runs his fingers delicately up Geralt’s hard length, listening to the man’s breath stutter. He stops as Geralt stiffens, and he pulls back to look at him in the darkness. 

“Ok?” he asks, fingers coming to rest gently on Geralt’s thigh, inviting but not demanding.

Geralt gives him a wild-eyed look, full of fear and hunger, licking his lips as he tries to find his words. He is breathless with arousal, and search though he might, he can’t make himself speak. Instead, he grabs Jaskier’s hand and places it back on his cock, his body tensing again, but then shivering and relaxing as he accustoms himself to the sensation. 

“Good,” Geralt reassures him breathlessly, holding Jaskier’s hand against his cock until Jaskier stops hesitating and wraps his hand more firmly around it. Geralt’s hips twitch and he hisses, and Jaskier realizes that he must be very sensitive. Loosening his grip just a little, he very carefully begins to move his hand. 

It takes a moment to find the right grip and speed, but when he does, the change that comes over Geralt is immediate. His head falls back and he  _ melts, _ his whole body relaxing into Jaskier’s sure and careful strokes. His loud groan is music to Jaskier’s ears, and he works his hand faster, eager to hear more. Geralt’s breath hitches and he twists, then settles again as he gets used to the new pace. After a moment Geralt’s own hand begins moving again, and Jaskier whines softly against his shoulder. He nuzzles in and presses his forehead to Geralt’s neck, losing himself in the pleasure of touching and being touched. 

Geralt slowly slips back until he is laying on his back, delirious with Jaskier’s skillful touch, and Jaskier moves with him, staying close. Geralt’s noises become more insistent, almost frantic, as the pleasure twists and sharpens deep inside of him. He squeezes Jaskier’s cock harder, hand moving faster, eagerly pulling moans out of Jaskier even as he himself spirals nearer and nearer to orgasm. 

Jaskier leans his face into Geralt’s shoulder and trembles, sweat standing out on his skin in the hot summer night as he nears his own completion. Geralt can feel drips of precome running down the back of his hand, and as Jaskier gives a stuttering, keening groan, the sound makes Geralt come explosively. His head falls back and he gives a raw cry, body arching off of the bed. 

The sight of this, the raw intensity of Geralt’s pleasure, is enough to bring Jaskier over the edge too. He cries out sharply, a rhythmic “Ah, ah, ah!” as he comes all over Geralt’s hip in hot spurts. 

As Geralt sinks back to the bed, Jaskier melts along his side, panting heavily. He nuzzles his sweaty cheek against Geralt’s big shoulder, shivering and moaning in the aftermath. They curl softly together, sweat and come cooling on their skin, sinking into a sleepy reverie. After a while Jaskier wakes enough to carefully roll aside, swiping his tank top off of the floor. He uses it to wipe the come up as Geralt cracks open one eye to watch, too sleepy to protest. Then he tosses it aside and nudges the big man to move so that he can get the quilt free. Geralt gives a drowsy grumble as he complies, slipping under the covers with Jaskier. Jaskier tangles himself happily back up with Geralt beneath the thin quilt, resting his head on Geralt’s shoulder. By the time he is settled, Geralt is already asleep. Jaskier smiles into his shoulder, yawns, and follows him into slumber. 


	7. Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt and Jaskier wake up and discover that the morning after isn't easy or clean. Geralt is depressed, Jaskier is scared and doesn't entirely know what to do about it. On the upside though, there is more smut this chapter. Who doesn't like a little smut with their angst?
> 
> Huge thanks to @stressedspidergirl, who is more than just a beta for this fic. You've shaped the whole character of this fic and given it such life, thank you for being my co-creator on this story. 
> 
> Note that there is a mention of past child abuse that involves scarring in this chapter.
> 
> Also: "Boot" means "newbie" and is a pretty rude thing to call someone.

Morning creeps into the room, slow lazy fingers of light brushing across the rumpled quilt, the clothing tangled on the floor, the soft blue, yellow, and white braided rug covering the wood floor. Daylight also reveals an antique desk underneath a window, piled high with unruly stacks of handwritten documents. There is a trashcan next to it which contains mainly crumpled paper, a few wads of which sit on the carpet forlornly nearby, having not made it in when they were unceremoniously tossed. Towards the back of the messy, quiet room is a large closet whose doors are currently closed. This is probably for the best, as there are visible lumps of fabric peeking along the very bottoms of the white folding closet doors. 

In the bed, two figures sleep, their naked bodies entwined. At some time during the night Jaskier had moved, and was now curled loosely in the curve of Geralt’s body, spine pressed comfortably to Geralt’s ribs, waist trapping his left arm. Geralt is curled softly around him, his face nestled up near the back of Jaskier’s neck, his breath stirring the fine hairs there with every exhale. The sweet scent of his skin and soft, heavy warmth of his body weigh Geralt down, making it difficult to want to waken. A warm haze enfolds him, protecting him, blunting the harsh edges inside of him. He drifts, avoiding consciousness. 

Jaskier stirs some time later, as the room begins to warm and become bright and sweaty in the summer heat. He turns his head against his pillow and yawns, snuggling into the welcome feeling of bare skin at his back. 

Geralt startles a little at the movement, eyes popping open, noticing that he is not in a familiar environment. As consciousness filters in he feels the heavy warmth of the other man on his arm, along his side, sees the soft brown hairs at the nape of Jaskier’s neck, watches them shiver as he breathes. His heart skips a beat and he frowns. Half frightened and half fascinated, he leans forward to brush his lips along the hairs, feeling the prickle of them. He revels guiltily in the warmth of Jaskier’s skin against his lips, his heart twisting as he takes in the soft oaky, soapy smell. The world is trickling back in faster now, and with it, bleak sensations of sorrow and fear. 

“Ah, fuck,” Geralt sighs, without any real rancor. He drops his head back against the pillow and rolls onto his back, his side still pressed up against Jaskier’s skin as if he can’t quite bear to part from him. 

Jaskier lifts his head sleepily. “Hmm?” he murmurs, voice thick. He lets out a yawn and stretches, then rolls over and puts his chin on Geralt’s chest, looking up at him from under his lashes. Despite the morning stubble he looks younger in the morning light, face smoothed by sleep, his fine hair unruly. He combs his fingers lightly through it as he asks, “Everything all right?”

Geralt looks down at him, terror and profound fondness twisting around inside of him as he gazes into those wide blue eyes. Hesitantly, he runs experimental fingers through the soft short hairs at the back of Jaskier’s head, down along his neck, feeling the light prickle beneath his fingertips. As he does so he gropes for words, golden eyes searching Jaskier’s face as if he will find answers there. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he grimaces, voice low and rough with sleep. He clears his throat, shaking his head and breaking away from Jaskier’s gaze, glancing to the side to see out the window. There’s not much to be seen through the lacy curtains, just the driveway, Jaskier’s car, and a neighbor's high wooden fence. “This is what got me in trouble in the first place.” He takes his hand off of the back of Jaskier’s neck and scrubs his face with it. The other hand he keeps close to his chest. It aches fiercely, and the bandages on his knuckles need to be changed, but it is far less painful than it was the day before. 

Tilting his head to the side, Jaskier studies his face. “What, being in my bed?” he inquires gently, full well knowing that’s not what Geralt meant. He gets more comfortable on Geralt, unselfconsciously splaying his hand across his lover’s chest, careful not to jostle his injured hand. 

“No.” Geralt grumps, annoyed at Jaskier’s deliberate obtuseness, but obscurely enjoying the gentle touch that accompanies it. The warmth of it is intoxicating and weirdly painful, making his heart ache. He wants to bury himself in it and vanish again, but in the bright light of day it is so much harder to do that.

“Fucking around like this is what got me fired. I shouldn’t be here.” Geralt struggles to sit up, pushing the sweet heat of Jaskier away from him even though his skin silently cries out at the loss. Jaskier reluctantly lets him, sliding off to the side and pulling the quilt in around his waist. Concerned eyes watch the big man as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and rubs his hand across his white hair, his two day stubble, his pale face. The silence stretches, and Geralt can feel Jaskier behind him, can almost feel him choosing his next words carefully. 

Normally, Jaskier wouldn’t cut right to the chase like this, but he suspects that the big man is about to make a break for it. Praying his words won’t be received the wrong way, Jaskier asks, “Geralt, I hope you won’t mind me being impertinent, but… Is that really true?" He knew that the Army had a long and storied history of coming down on gay soldiers far more harshly than others; Jaskier had seen it too many times, one way or another. Not that Geralt hadn’t done anything wrong; if he had gotten caught with another man in front of a camera, he’d clearly been out of bounds. However, it wouldn’t surprise Jaskier if he had been excessively penalized for something that might have been otherwise swept under the rug. 

Geralt turns to glare over his shoulder at him. “That’s none of your goddamn fucking business,” he growls, face hardening. 

Jaskier spreads his hands out, putting them up in a gesture of surrender. “My mistake,” he says, but he sounds more exasperated than apologetic. “Just… you would not  _ believe _ the amount of inappropriate sex stories I’ve heard from servicemembers. People get caught doing stupid things all the time. I just wondered…” He cuts off abruptly as Geralt growls again, a deep, unfriendly sound that makes the hair on his arms stand up just slightly. 

Geralt glowers at the tousled man sitting on the bed behind him, then down at his fatigue pants on the floor. He wants to get up and walk away from this conversation, but the idea of putting on another pair of fatigues right now actively makes his heart hurt, so he hesitates. Behind him, Jaskier slowly subsides, thankfully silent for another moment. 

It gives Geralt time to think, really  _ think, _ which he hasn’t given himself much chance to do since being discharged. His eyes trace the folds and contours of his pants on the floor, rage, guilt, and sorrow boiling the inside of his body raw. The untold story sits on his tongue like a lead weight. And at his elbow the steady warmth of Jaskier’s body radiates, warm and reassuring. After a life of service, that warm presence is the only one left. No one else to talk to, no one else to lean on. A sudden surge of loneliness spikes through him, cutting through his anger, and he visibly deflates. Licking his lips, he hesitantly begins to speak. He’s surprised to find himself telling Jaskier the truth, but some part of him so badly needs to hear the words said aloud that he almost can’t stop himself. “I knew better. I… I should have never let him do. Uh. What he did. It was my own fault.” He presses his knuckles against his thick thigh and cracks them nervously. “I  _ deserved _ to be fired.” 

Jaskier’s face flickers as he processes this and he bites his lip, trying to feel his way across the minefield of a conversation in front of him. He scrubs his own hand across his face sleepily, wishing deep down that this could have waited until after coffee. On some level, though, he knows he brought it on himself. Closeted older men like Geralt didn’t always do well the morning after, even in the best of circumstances. And this? This definitely was not the best circumstances.

“Mm… that sounds like a very impulsive thing to do,” Jaskier muses delicately. “But was the… uh, sex, really the thing that got you fired?” He leaves this hanging in the air, trying desperately not to push Geralt too hard, not sure if he is succeeding. It is very difficult for him to see a queer man beating himself up like this though. The sheer outrage he feels about the way the Army treats its gay servicemembers is making it very hard for him to hold his tongue or act with discretion. He flinches very slightly as Geralt snarls, but aside from that, refuses to waver, watching Geralt intently. He notices that Geralt begins to flick his fingers rhythmically against his thigh as he thinks, and that the motion seems to calm him. 

Geralt gropes for words, feeling like the air is getting sucked out of the room as he searches. After a long silence, he speaks, his voice thick and low. “You’re trying to ask me if I was fired for...uhm. For being with who I was with. Or if I was fired for being inappropriate. Right?”

“Yes, love. That’s what I’m asking,” Jaskier replies gently, wanting more than anything to reach out and run his hands over Geralt’s shoulders and back, to soothe some of the pain away. The man’s body is humming with tension though, nasty sparks of it crackling in the air between them, so Jaskier sits back slightly instead to give him room to think. He can see Geralt’s jaw working, clearly uncomfortable to be confronted with the question so baldly. Slowly, Geralt shakes his head. He looks defeated, and Jaskier aches to see his sadness. 

“I don’t know,” he says, and he sounds bone-weary. “I wish I knew, but I don’t.” The words are heavy in his mouth, difficult to get out. In a strange way, as angry as he is, he is also grateful for a chance to talk about it. A lifetime of choking silence feels like it is giving way to something new, though he doesn’t quite understand how yet. 

Jaskier sighs, nodding, then tilts his head to the side and runs his eyes over Geralt’s back again. His heart sinks as he notices for the first time that there is a massive map of thin horizontal scars criss-crossing his back, from his shoulders all the way down what is visible of his buttocks. They are faded, old. Probably from childhood. Tears spring unbidden to his eyes, and he looks up at the ceiling quickly to stop them from spilling over his cheeks. 

When he regains control, he swallows a few times, then says, “You’re not bad for… wanting… who you want. The world very much wants queers to think we’re bad for loving the way we do, but there’s no… no  _ inherent _ harm in being interested in other men. No more than there is being interested in women, or anyone else.” 

“Tell that to my commission,” Geralt snaps, still staring at his pants.

Jaskier grimaces, clenching and unclenching his hands and trying not to let Geralt’s anger throw him. He knows it’s not personal, but he is  _ so _ upset about how unjustly Geralt has been treated that it is hard for him to retain his center. Wrestling with his own discomfort, he looks for something kind to say, and settles on, “Okay… yes. I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want… I don’t think anyone should ever think they’re bad for being queer, Geralt. It’s just not… it’s not fair. It’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to anyone else.” He pauses, then adds softly, “I didn’t choose to be the way I am, did you?”

Geralt’s shoulders sink until he is hunched down, cheek held lightly against his splinted hand, all of the remaining anger draining out of him and leaving him feeling icy and frozen inside. Slowly, slowly, he shakes his head ‘no.’ 

The way he unconsciously pulls in after he shakes his head, like he is expecting to be hit, makes Jaskier’s stomach plunge. Unable to help himself, Jaskier reaches out to Geralt, but he twists out from under Jaskier’s hands with the speed of instinct. Jaskier leans back immediately, guessing how deeply upset the other man must be given how badly his own heart is racing. His lips thin in frustration and sadness. He pulls his hands back into his lap, eyes tracing over the scars on Geralt’s back helplessly as he thinks.

“Well… I didn’t either. And neither did Yarpen, or any of the people you worked with or served in my bar. I don’t know who told you what, Geralt, but…” Jaskier sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Look. In my house, you’re safe. No one’s here but me, and I’m not going to terrorize you. Ok? You can work out the rest later when you’re ready.” He slides his legs over the side of the bed, sitting carefully next to Geralt without touching him. Giving the other man an awkward little smile, he adds, “That is, if you don’t run away screaming. Was this all too much for you?” He gestures vaguely at the bedroom, including himself in the gesture, recalling the intimacy of the night before. 

Much to Geralt and Jaskier’s mutual surprise, Geralt begins, quietly, to chuckle, a hollow painful sound. He puts his face into his hand, covering his eyes, and shakes his head. “Oh… I don’t know, Buttercup,” he groans, Jaskier smiling slightly as he hears the nickname. 

“I feel like I’m going fucking crazy,” Geralt confesses. “I feel like I died and just haven’t stopped walking yet, and I’m wondering when I’m going to drop. I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me anymore.” He presses on his eyes until he can see stars, trying to process everything he’s feeling, feeling like he’s drowning in icy water instead. He sits, caught in a whirl of gnawing guilt and profoundly lonely hunger. Everything he’s ever thought he was is falling out from under him, leaving him disoriented and desperately craving safety. 

Feeling powerless, Jaskier sits at his side, wishing that he knew the magic words to make it better. He’d make it all go away in a heartbeat, if only he knew how. 

After a moment, Geralt heaves a deep sigh and continues, “And I know I should regret…” he pauses, groping for words. He settles lamely on, “Last night. I know I should regret you. But I… Hmm.” And he reaches out suddenly and grabs Jaskier’s hand, surprising himself. He feels like he’s tearing in two, but he craves a return to the sunny warmth of Jaskier’s touch so badly that it doesn’t matter. The heat of Jaskier’s hand in his own makes Geralt’s hungry skin sing **.** Jaskier startles, but not unpleasantly. Then he lightly squeezes his hand back, a crooked smile lighting his face. Geralt grimaces, guilt and shame and desire causing his cheeks to heat and his heart to freeze, but he doesn’t let go.

“Thank you, I think?” Jaskier laughs softly, and Geralt ducks his head, embarrassed. “For what it’s worth, I very much do not regret being with you, either.” He gives Geralt a frank, curious look, running his finger over Geralt’s knuckles. Geralt twitches and pulls away, but when Jaskier stops rubbing, he allows his hand to fall back into Jaskier’s. He lifts his head slightly, watching his kind lover out of the corner of his eye, his expression guarded. 

Jaskier catches Geralt’s eye and smiles at him, warm as the morning sun. “Thank you for your trust, dear heart. For your body, for your… mm, everything.” His eyes flicker fondly over Geralt’s naked, scarred body beside him, and his smile widens ever so slightly. “I so very much want to do it again sometime.” He gives Geralt’s hand a little squeeze, and Geralt feels warmth race up his arm, making his heart skip and flutter despite the gnawing icy ache. 

“Maybe some coffee and a shower first, though, hmm? And we’d promised we’d have a bit of a talk,” Jaskier gently releases Geralt’s hand and stands up. “You’re welcome to use my shower, love, it’s right through that door. I’ll go put towels out for you and get some coffee going.” Stepping carefully around the tangle of clothing on the floor, Jaskier snags some boxer briefs out of a dresser. 

Geralt watches as he hops into them awkwardly, taking in the long muscular lines of his body as he wrestles with his undergarments, oddly charmed by his gawky movements. He twists between shame and longing as his eyes linger on Jaskier’s strong hips and firm ass, finds himself already craving the soft heat of his skin once more even as some part of him quietly insists that he is broken for wanting it. 

Jaskier, oblivious, slips through a door near the foot of his bed that Geralt hadn’t noticed in the dark. There’s sounds of rummaging, of running water, and then Jaskier emerges and flashes Geralt another brief smile before vanishing out the bedroom door. 

Geralt watches Jaskier go, at a loss for words. His hand is still warm from Jaskier’s touch, tingling and prickling where their skin was in contact. He flexes it thoughtfully, eyes turning to the door of Jaskier’s bedroom, listening to the distant sounds of bustling coming from the kitchen. The heat of the man’s presence is like sunlight, and without him the room feels colder, empty. 

He turns his head to take in the messy bedroom, finally registering all of the crumpled laundry on the floor, the paper outside the wastebasket, the lumps of fabric peeking out from under the closet door. The mess causes him to glower, makes him feel itchy under his skin. He wonders silently how Jaskier lives like this, with socks scattered on the floor like leaves. His own crumpled clothing lies near his feet. 

Giving it a guilty grimace, he picks it up and smooths it out, folding it and placing it on the bed in a neat pile before heading naked over to the half-open master bathroom door. After military school, much less the Army, walking bare in a stranger's room barely phases him. What does bother him, though, is his skin. It pulls where come has dried on it, and he brushes his fingers over his hip musingly as he walks. The touch conjures a little flash of memory, of Jaskier's head thrown back in the moonlight. He flinches and draws his hand back, overwhelmed. 

The first thing he sees in the surprisingly clean bathroom is a white sink under a mirrored medicine cabinet. It is fitted to a blue tiled wall. The cleanliness is a welcome contrast to the chaos of the master bedroom, and Geralt finds himself relaxing slightly. Immediately next to the sink is a tall white cabinet with several small doors, dividing the sink from the tub. The tub itself is huge, both deep and long, more than large enough for even a big man like Geralt to sink into and get a good soak. Draped over the edge of it is a large light blue towel, soft and fluffy, with a hand towel, a washcloth, and a fresh unopened plastic razor sitting on top of it. At the very end of the bathroom, built between the large tub and the wall, is a shower stall enclosed in rippled glass. It is steamed over, the water inside already running. 

Geralt takes all this in numbly, feeling like his insides are slowly becoming one great big block of ice. The gnawing feeling that this isn’t where he should be sets in deeper now that he is alone, feeling out of context in this cozy, welcoming bathroom. Still, he needs a shower, and a shave, and he can’t think of a better way to go about getting them. So he goes over to the towel and picks up the razor. Every step he takes across the bathroom sees him sink deeper into chilly, crushing depression, an uncomfortably familiar part of washing a lover off of his skin. 

He barely sees the inside of the stall, tuning it out as he goes through the motions of cleansing himself, careful to keep his injured hand as dry as possible. He uses the little mirror hanging on the wall to clumsily shave his face. The inability to perform his usual shaving routine makes him feel so tense that his shoulders and stomach physically ache, but the idea of the stubble overtaking his face is far worse, so he fumbles his way through until he is finished. When he is done he is nicked in several places, but finally feels clean. Heaving a heavy sigh of relief, he rinses and exits the shower. 

As he exits, he hears music playing in the other room, far quieter than yesterday, upbeat and cheery. “ _ Roam, if you want to… _ ” he hears a woman sing, “ _ All around the world… _ ” The song is unfamiliar, but pleasant enough. He snags the towel and rubs himself dry with it, listening to the rustles and scrapes of Jaskier in the main living space. When he is dry, he wraps the towel and around his waist, leaving the bathroom. What he sees causes him to draw up short, depression snapping suddenly into irrationally potent rage. On the floor near the foot of the bed is a box, marked “Clothing.” On top of it are the attic keys.

“Jaskier!” He barks out, his voice cutting across the house like a gunshot. “What the everloving  _ fuck is this _ ?” His jaw clenches as he stares at the box on the floor. He hears a muffled swear from the other room, indistinct through the music, and then Jaskier’s feet thumping rapidly across the wood floor to the bedroom door. 

Jaskier opens it and gives Geralt a worried look, unsure why he’s been yelled at. “Geralt! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you, I just thought you wouldn’t want to put your dirty clothes back on…” he trails off, visibly withering under the weight of Geralt’s thousand watt glare. 

“Don’t.  _ Touch. _ My. Things.” Geralt grates out, standing stiffly over the box. “Did you touch anything? What did you touch?” He rounds on Jaskier, and Jaskier shrinks back, face going from worried to ‘oh shit,’ blue eyes wide and startled. 

“Oh god nothing, Geralt, I’m really sorry, I promise that’s the only box I touched,” he replies, looking a bit panicked. Studying the tension in Geralt’s body, he brings his hands up in a gesture of unconditional surrender. “I swear, I didn’t even look,” he promises. “I just grabbed the one box and came straight downstairs, I haven’t even looked inside it. I promise I was just trying to help.” 

“Don’t help me.” Geralt snaps, turning away from Jaskier. He considers the box for another moment, weighing his options. Though he is furious, rationally, there is no real harm in what Jaskier has done, providing that none of his other boxes has been touched. He settles on snarling, “Get out of here. I need to get dressed. And…” he turns back, giving Jaskier such a menacing look that Jaskier takes a step back, “If you so much as fucking touch anything else of mine, we will have a fucking problem. Got it?”

“Got it,” Jaskier gulps. “I’m really s-”

“Go!” Geralt barks. Jaskier startles and exits quickly, cursing under his breath. Geralt grumbles and kneels down, picking up the box and setting it on the bed, catching the keys as they slide and setting them back on the neatly folded pile of his fatigues. He feels obscurely guilty for the amount of rage he took out on Jaskier, but also quite justified in telling the spoony little bastard to stay away from his personal things. 

Still muttering, he opens the lid to the box. As he pulls it aside he falls silent. Inside are his clothes from his first few years in the Army, undisturbed as promised. They look like they will still more or less fit him. White, crisp, short-sleeved button down shirts. Plain khaki pants. Belts. Even some rolled up dress socks that he had barely worn but felt bad about discarding. 

_ A jet engine roared behind him as he strode confidently off of an air strip, dispersing from a column of men and heading for a steel door on the side of a tan building. Over his shoulder was thrown a duffel sack, and on his head was a neat black beret. Gold bars shone on his shoulders, showing his rank of Second Lieutenant. It was his first day on the foreign base, and he was reporting for duty. _

_ As he approached the door, it banged open. From within the building emerged a slight woman with a mass of curly dark hair trapped in a neat braid, an exasperated-looking man at her heels. She was dressed in an impeccable black blazer and slacks with a white blouse underneath, a pass pinned to its lapel that identified her as press. And as she barged around him, snapping, “Move it, boot!” he could see that her eyes were a startling shade of violet. He stumbled back, surprised, making way for her and her companion. _

_ The man following her was broad-shouldered and brown, with a closely shorn head of dark hair. He had an easygoing-looking face with a short beard, pockmarked cheeks, and kind eyes. He was wearing fatigues, and had the same press pass as the woman clipped to his tan shirt. Over his shoulder was slung a black bag, and over his neck hung a worn camera case. As he passed Geralt, he gave him a friendly wink.  _

_ Geralt turned, watching them head across the tarmac, feeling like he’d been hit between the eyes with a hammer. Never in his entire life had he seen a woman like that, one that made his heart race just seeing her. And on the air, surrounding him, was the smell of lilac and gooseberries. _

He feels a lump rising in his throat as he reaches into the box, fingering the empty shoulders of his white shirt where the insignia used to be pinned. The anger is draining away, turning back into something cold and weary as he looks over the old clothing. Then he pulls the shirt out, flaps it once to unfold it, and begins putting it on. It is very slightly tight across the chest and shoulders, but still fits. He reaches next for pants, lost in memory. 

_ As he stumbled into the darkness of the building, feeling caught off balance, a voice snapped from down the hallway, “Rivii! Is that you? Get your dumb fucking ass in here!” His stomach plunged with a sudden sensation of dread. That was an ominous way to be greeted by a commanding officer he hadn’t even  _ **_met_ ** _ yet.  _

_ “Yes, sir!” he called down the hallway, speeding up to a neat trot and coming to a halt in front of the older man glaring in an open doorway. Snapping off a crisp salute, he said, “Second Lieutenant Rivii, reporting for duty, Sir.” The older man’s lip curled, and he grunted, stepping back into his office.  _

_ “You’re late,” he said to Geralt, who was not, in fact, late. Geralt suppressed a grimace, keeping his face carefully wooden as he watched the Captain stride across the room and sit behind a desk with an expression like a sour old bulldog. “Well?” he barked. _

_ “Sorry, sir, won’t happen again sir.” Geralt replied cautiously, not sure exactly what was expected of him. This was not how he wanted his first day on the job to look. He planted his feet and placed his hands behind his back in parade rest, eyeing the other man stoically, waiting to see what was in store. What was in store for him turned out to be the lecture of a lifetime. The Captain chewed into him like a buzzsaw, taking him pre-emptively to task for every fuck-up he was likely to make as a green officer, plus a few unlikely ones that left him quietly impressed at whoever must have come before him. He made a mental note to find out what an ibex was. _

_ As the Captain wound down, he pulled his attention back in, hands still held behind his back, shoulders thrown stiffly back. “...And the last thing,” the Captain barked. “Is that you will be taking that bitch from the AP off my hands. She is now officially  _ **_your problem_ ** _ , Rivii. You keep that woman so happy she’s shitting rainbows, or I will have your commission. Got it?”  _

_ The sinking feeling that Geralt had been experiencing this entire conversation turned to cold dread. That woman was… the least happy looking woman he had ever seen. Oh fuck. “Yes sir,” he replied, carefully impassive.  _

_ “Good!” Snapped the Captain, turning to the papers on his desk. “You’re dismissed. Report to the barracks.” He gave Geralt a nasty smile. “Then, you better track that press bitch down before she wreaks havoc around here. Now get the fuck out of my office!” _

He pulls on his pants, also a little tight around the hips but not unbearably so. They won’t do for long, but they will be fine until he can buy some civilian clothing. Out in the main room he can hear something sizzling, and the smells of good coffee and breakfast cooking are starting to reach him. He finishes dressing, slipping on the belt and socks, before sitting back down on the bed next to the box. 

_ “Oh, you’re here to keep me happy?” The woman’s lip curled. “Might have to kiss that shiny new commission of yours goodbye, pretty boy. I guarantee I am about to make your life a living hell.” She turned away and Geralt started to follow her awkwardly, not sure how to handle this situation. “Oh for the love of-” she snapped, turning back to face him. “If you follow me around this whole base, how am I supposed to get anything done?” _

_ “I’m supposed to help you, ma’am.” He looked embarrassed, and the dark haired man standing behind the woman grinned, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “I uh, can’t leave you unsupervised.” _

_ “Fuck.” She muttered. “Fine, then, follow me. I have people to interview.” And before he could protest, she snapped an itinerary out of the bag at her hip and shoved it in his face, where he could see the official Army seal and a scribbled signature. “Don’t start. Where’s the Major?”  _

_ With a sinking feeling, Geralt gestured up the hallway. The woman took to her heel immediately, the man with the big bag falling in behind her. Geralt hesitated for just a moment. “Let’s go, Skippy! We haven’t got all day! ” the woman’s voice cracked out, startling him into motion. He jogged to catch up, swearing under his breath. Army upbringing had led him to expect a hard life in the service, but this? This he was not prepared for. _

_ “Fuck my life,” he grumbled.  _

Slowly, he rummages through the rest of the box, checking to make sure everything is still in place. His anger has cooled considerably now he is sure that everything is in order. He relaxes slightly, sighs, and rubs his hand across his face again. The lack of stubble is an enormous relief, the sensation of his shaved skin under his palm serving to soothe him further. Placing the lid back on the box, he stands and pockets the attic keys, then grabs his shoes. He quietly slips out of the bedroom and heads for the front door without Jaskier noticing. Fumbling on his boots, he ducks out the door and into the hot summer morning air. 

The wet New England summer hits him like a soggy, steaming blanket as the door closes behind him. Grimacing in disgust, Geralt heads around the side of the house. By the time he reaches the top of the stairs, he feels like his shirt is already sticking to him. He opens the door to the attic loft, feeling his stomach twist nervously, half expecting to see his things scattered all over the attic. Much to his intense relief, however, he can see that everything looks absolutely untouched. The box of letters on the bed is still closed, hasn't moved an inch. Every other item is still where he put it.

He heaves a quiet sigh of relief and drops the box of clothing next to the dresser. Then he snags his bag, fishing out his deodorant and a clean pair of underwear from its depths. As he paws through it, he sees the sheaf of letters that he keeps carefully tucked at the back, and hears the jingle of his dog tags at the bottom of the sack. He’d taken them off when he was discharged, stuffed them in his bag. Not ready to confront either of these things, he leaves them in their places and heads to the bathroom. 

When he is done, he grabs his dress loafers out of their box before he heads back downstairs. He slips them on as he heads out the door. They are stiff, and shiny, but also significantly easier to get on and off than his boots were. The anger he was feeling has faded to a faint buzz of frustration, barely noticeable over the background of icy depression which has resumed its grip on his body. 

As he slips in the front door, music washes back over him, the house filled with the pleasant sound of people singing in chorus, “ _ If you need me, let me know. Gonna be around, if you've got no place to go, when you're feeling down… _ ” He eases the door closed, disliking the “thump” it makes when closed normally, and toes his loafers off next to Jaskier’s unruly collection of shoes in the entryway. Quietly, he pads across the house to the kitchen, towards the coffee smells, towards Jaskier, who is singing and dancing in his underwear and bare feet while he watches something on the stove. 

Jaskier is holding a coffee cup, which he sips occasionally between snatches of song. He lifts the lid of the pan on the stove, curses as he burns himself on the steam, drops the lid and sucks his fingers, then tries again. This time he is apparently more successful, because he nods in satisfaction. The steam smells  _ good, _ eggy and rich. 

Geralt approaches on habitually silent feet, coming to rest at the corner of the kitchen island. He clears his throat carefully, trying not to startle Jaskier too badly. This… utterly fails. Jaskier’s hands fly up, coffee mug dropping to the floor and shattering, hot coffee splashing all over the kitchen floor. 

“Fucking Jesus! Geralt! Where the hell did you come from?!” he gasps, putting his hand over his hammering heart. Geralt, nearly as startled as Jaskier, gives him a wide-eyed look, eyes traveling between Jaskier’s wide-eyed face and the shattered coffee mug on the floor. 

“Um.” Geralt manages awkwardly, at a loss for words. Coffee drips from the hair on Jaskier’s legs, and his bare feet are surrounded by little ceramic shards. Embarrassed, Geralt kneels down and begins picking them up. Jaskier goes to move and Geralt makes a little gesture, indicating that he should stop before he cuts himself. The look Jaskier gives Geralt is a little wild-eyed, but he complies, holding still while Geralt gathers the worst of the shattered cup up off of the floor. 

“Sorry,” he rumbles apologetically. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He stands with easy grace, moving around the other side of the kitchen island to where he saw Jaskier stow the trash can near the back door last night. “I’m quiet on my feet.”

“You are…  _ not _ wrong,” Jaskier gasps, gaping at his dripping legs. “Fuck, Geralt! How did you even get that quiet?!” He grabs the dish rag off of the stove and begins to gingerly wipe his legs off, trying not to move his bare feet and step on any of the shards. Then he shakes his head, muttering, “Sorry, stupid question, I just…”

Geralt kneels down in front of him carefully, trying to get in his line of sight before making eye contact. “Sorry,” he apologizes again, lips quirking in a little half-smile. He holds his hand out for the towel, and Jaskier hands it over to him, still slightly flustered. Geralt very carefully wipes the last of the broken cup away from Jaskier’s feet.

Jaskier watches him kneeling there, broad shoulders moving beneath the white button down. Darting his tongue across his lower lip and trying to restart his brain, he stutters, “It’s ok. Um. Jesus fuck, Geralt, I’m going to have to put a bell on you.” He breaks out in a flustered grin, watching as Geralt rises and goes to the bin. He shakes the towel out as best he can and sets it on the counter gingerly, then goes to wash his hand in the sink. Jaskier rakes his hair out of his eyes and looks him over. 

“Are you ok? No cuts?” He turns back to the stove, returning his attention to the pan. 

“I’m fine. Are your feet okay?” Geralt asks, keeping his eyes on his hands. 

“Fine, thanks to you,” Jaskier hums pleasantly, cutting a frittata apart in the cast iron pan and beginning to serve it. “And… look, about your stuff-”

“Stop.” Geralt grumps, frowning. “It’s over.”

“I just wanted to ap-”

“Stop! Just don’t touch it again,” Geralt snaps, shaking his wet hand off and looking around for a towel. With a slightly wounded look on his face, Jaskier fishes one out of a drawer and hands it to him. Geralt takes it, his face falling a little when he sees the look on Jaskier’s face. His habits of speech could be anywhere from rough to downright unfriendly, especially when he was upset, but he hadn’t meant to hurt or scare him. He grimaces and dries his hand off, passes the towel silently back to Jaskier, and goes to sit down on the stool he picked the night before. Settling onto it, he fiddles with his bandage, feeling guilty and wrong-footed. 

Jaskier eyes him uncertainly for a moment, looking like he’s about to say something but then biting it back. Instead, he brings him a fresh mug of coffee and a plate with a quarter of ham and green onion frittata. There’s cheddar on top, and Jaskier pushes over salt and pepper grinders so that Geralt can season it. After serving himself and getting a new mug, he settles in on his own stool and eyes Geralt warily.

Geralt avoids his eyes and digs into his breakfast, embarrassed. After the MREs and mess hall food he had been subjected to in Somalia, the eggs are just this side of heavenly. He tries to eat this meal a little more slowly than the dinner of the night before, forcing himself to slow down and chew. There’s no rush, and although everything feels desperately unfamiliar, he also gets the sense that he is genuinely safe. 

“This is really good. Thank you,” Geralt mumbles, poking a piece of egg around with his fork, still embarrassed. 

Jaskier looks up over his mug and the corners of his bright eyes crinkle. He takes a long sip of his coffee, gaze softly roaming over Geralt. He seems more relaxed now, the dangerous tension mostly gone from his frame, and Jaskier finds himself slowly relaxing too. “You’re very welcome,” he responds, warming back up. “I really enjoy having the excuse to cook, I let myself get lazy being on my own. Too many frozen pizzas after the bar,” he drawls, and chuckles. “They’ll be the death of me but I love them.” 

“Don’t you get home at three or four in the morning?” Geralt asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, don’t judge me!” Jaskier laughs. “Sometimes pizza and wine is the only way to wash down coming home at that ungodly hour.” He pauses and takes a sip of coffee, waving his long hands about. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my bar almost as much as I love breathing, but the schedule can be awful when the books come due.” 

“What, you do them in the middle of the night?” Geralt shakes his head, forking up the last of his frittata. 

“Well of course! Best time, when it’s all quiet and I don’t have any excuses to run off and avoid them,” Jaskier laughs. “There’s too many better things I could be doing during the day.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt chuckles, shaking his head again in disbelief. “Sounds like a terrible plan.”

“Well, when you start running the bar, I’ll take your opinion into account,” Jaskier says lightly in return, a teasing grin playing about the corners of his mouth. “Speaking of which… What are your plans, now that you’re back in the States?”

The smile falls off of Geralt’s face and he looks down at his mug. He flashes on the boxes upstairs again and feels an icy rush of guilt that rolls across him like freezing water. Jaskier eyes him, then stands and takes Geralt’s plate back to the stove. He refills it with another portion of frittata and pushes it across the island to Geralt, before settling back in with his coffee to wait for his answer. 

Geralt takes the plate back, grateful for something to focus on other than Jaskier’s inquisitive look, simmering with shame and disquiet. Using his fork to poke at the frittata, slowly pulling it apart, he waits for words to come. “Uh... “ he sighs deeply, shaking his head. “I don’t have any plans yet. I need to find my truck, I need to renew my US driver’s license…” he shrugs uncomfortably. “Need to get a hotel room or something. Find a job. A place. Figure myself out.” His stomach turns sharply as these words leave his mouth, feeling like they burn his lips. The future stretches out in front of him in painful relief, new and alien and empty. 

Jaskier nods, rubbing his coffee mug back and forth absentmindedly on his lower lip. He takes a drink, then sets it down. “Your truck’s been towed by now, I should imagine. I have a phone book you can use. I think I even remember which tow service the city usually uses.” 

Geralt grunts, nods, takes a bite of his frittata. It’s cheesy and warm, deeply comforting flavors that help anchor him to the here and now. He chews in awkward silence, studying his plate. To be perfectly honest, he had no clue how he was going to land a job with a dishonorable discharge on his record. People who would take an older veteran like himself on faith were thin on the ground, as far as he knew. He starts in surprise when Jaskier speaks again. 

“You’re welcome to stay in the attic while you get your legs under you,” he tells Geralt, gesturing to the house with an open hand. “No need to waste money on a hotel. Not forever, mind you, but I should think a few days won’t hurt. My house is a little too quiet with just me in it anyway.”

Geralt lifts his head and looks at Jaskier, surprised and a little wary. “You don’t know me. Why would you do that?”

Jaskier cocks his head to the side, pondering his answer. He runs his fingers over the edge of the coffee mug, back and forth, back and forth, then puts it down and leans his elbows on the counter. “Because I can. Because it’s a nice thing to be able to do for someone.” He smiles again, tossing his hair out of his eyes. “And because I like you.”

Geralt flushes and looks away, grabbing his coffee and taking a long drink, grounding himself with the feeling of hot bitter liquid on his tongue. He feels grateful, confused, even a little alarmed by the offer. He also can’t think of anywhere safer to go, not with everything he’s lost. Besides… The idea of being near Jaskier longer feels inexplicably good, despite all of his misgivings. Warming. Groping for words, he settles on grunting into the mug, “It’s your funeral.”

Jaskier laughs at that, unphased. “It’s my pleasure, darling.” He goes quiet for a moment, watching Geralt as he eats. Then he says, “You should consider getting your server’s permits, too.” Jaskier nudges him lightly with his toe. “I was really impressed by how you handled the bar during rush. People who’ve been serving for years don’t stay as cool-headed as you did. How did you learn to mix drinks?”

Geralt blinks, not sure he heard Jaskier properly. “Server’s permits?” he asks dumbly. 

“Server’s permits, that’s what I said! Food and drink! I can take you down to the city center to get the process rolling, it’s not far from here.” Jaskier replies. “I still need a server down at the Peg. Maybe you could try it… even just for a few weeks. Until you find something better. It’ll give you something recent on your resume, if nothing else,” he points out, then rises, asking, “More coffee?”

“Please,” replies Geralt, grateful for the opportunity to process what Jaskier just said. He holds out his cup and Jaskier refills it, then his own, with nutty, fragrant coffee. Taking another long swallow of the hot beverage to clear his head, he reflects upon Jaskier’s offer. After a few beats of silence, he speaks again. 

“I um… didn’t like most of my co-workers very much, so I spent a lot of time in bars when I wasn’t working,” Geralt reveals, flashing his canines in an unpleasant smile. “Got to know the bartenders. Finally got a mixology manual from one of them because I was asking so many questions, and I got hooked.” He shrugs one muscular shoulder, looking out Jaskier’s kitchen window at the shady, ratty yard out behind his house. “Memorized that one when I was in Israel. Next one when I was in Lebanon.” Taking another long sip of coffee, he continues. “Gave me something to focus on that wasn’t... I don’t know. Wasn’t death, I guess. And,” he pauses and shakes his head with a little shrug, "it gave me something to talk about with the bartenders. They make better conversation than most soldiers do. Better friends, too, as far as that goes."

Jaskier tips his head to the side, listening. “Sounds lonely,” he muses, rubbing his foot against his ankle and playing with his coffee mug. Geralt snorts softly into his own mug and nods. 

“It was,” he agrees, watching the dark liquid swirl in his cup as he turns it. After a long silence he queries, “What makes you think I’d be a good employee? I just got fired from my last job.” 

Jaskier frowns. “Why wouldn’t I? Did you have any other major interruptions in your career?” 

Geralt glances up at him, surprised. “No…” he admits, eyeing Jaskier. 

“And how old are you, mid-forties? No, don’t answer that, it’s not important,” Jaskier waves his hand, taking a quick sip of his coffee and then continuing. “Point is, I guarantee you I’ve never had anyone else with a job history as stable as yours working in my bar, darling. Unless I’m missing some terrible secret, I’d hazard a guess that you’d be a wonderful asset to our little crew.” He gives Geralt a friendly look. Geralt looks back at him in bewilderment. 

Geralt is accustomed to many things, but being trusted so deeply and immediately is not one of them. It’s disorienting. Much to his horror, he feels a deep blush creeping up the collar of his shirt and making a bid for his cheeks. Turning his attention back to his coffee, he tries to get his bearings. Jaskier watches him kindly, turning his mug in his hands. 

“I don’t understand,” Geralt settles on saying, looking down at his plate. He feels so warm under that gaze that it makes it hard to think, much less answer a question like that clearly. Jaskier smiles gently as he replies. 

“I’m trying to hire you, Geralt. Was I not being clear?” Jaskier teases lightly. To his surprise as well as Geralt’s own, Geralt cracks a smile. The white-haired man shakes his head, still staring into his coffee. 

“Let me think about it?” he says finally.

“Ah, of course, darling!” Jaskier exclaims warmly. “Do you still want me to take you to get the permits? Just in case?” He forks up the last of his frittata, then stands and takes his dishes to the sink. While he waits for Geralt to answer he begins to rinse the dirty dishes and prepare them for the dishwasher. Behind him, Geralt licks coffee off of his lips and watches Jaskier move, eyes playing over the bare skin of his long back and broad, muscular shoulders. 

“Sure,” he says, finally, and downs the last of his coffee. What the hell. His life had gone to fucking hell in a handbasket. While he felt too vulnerable to just say yes, the offer at least held up some kind of hope for his otherwise alarmingly blank future. 

He shakes his head and pulls his plate close, cleaning the last of his breakfast off of it hungrily. "I'm going to get fat if you keep feeding me like this," he grumbles, standing with his dishes and rounding the island to take them to the sink. 

Jaskier takes them with a sunny smile, tilting his head to catch Geralt’s golden eyes with his own. “I somehow doubt that,” he says, a little playful purr at the very edge of his voice. Geralt looks quickly up at the ceiling, not sure how to react but enjoying the feel of Jaskier’s warmth nearby. Jaskier gently elbows him, smiling to himself as he rinses the dishes. 

“The phone book is right next to the phone, darling.” He gestures behind him to the section of wall between his bedroom door and the kitchen, where there is a low wooden bookshelf with a phone sitting on top. “I think the towing company’s called Meehan’s.” Teetering somewhere between gratitude and embarrassment, Geralt nods his thanks and crosses to the telephone. 

What follows is a frustrating and instructive hour in the vagaries of municipal administration. Jaskier was right about the usual tow company’s name, but it turns out they were not the ones contracted for the industrial neighborhood Geralt left his truck in. Grumbling, Geralt takes down a few numbers with the pad and pen next to the phone, then begins his hunt. 

By the time Geralt has found his truck, he is boiling with frustration. The rest of the morning and much of the afternoon is consumed with visits to various government buildings to deal with paperwork. The evening is taken over by the ordeal of retrieving Geralt’s ancient truck, which obliges eventually to start at the tow yard. Geralt drives it all the way back to Jaskier’s home with the heater on high and the windows all the way open, a grueling trip in the thick summer evening heat. 

By the time they arrive back at the house, Geralt is miserable and covered in sweat, and Jaskier is running late to get to the bar. While Geralt showers upstairs and changes into fresh clothing, Jaskier quickly reheats some dinner for Geralt. By the time he comes downstairs, Jaskier is dressed in clean clothing and is pulling his shoes on by the door. He pauses before he leaves to squeeze Geralt’s arm fondly, indicating where dinner sits on the kitchen island and letting him know that he is welcome to pour himself some wine and make himself at home. Then he flits away, leaving Geralt standing in the entryway. 

Geralt watches the door close behind him, feeling a little at loose ends. He trails through the darkened house, coming to rest in the pool of light that is the kitchen. The meal is leftover chicken and potatoes from the night before, still delicious the second time around. He hunts around in the kitchen drawers for a corkscrew, helps himself to some wine, and settles in at the island to eat his meal. The house feels smaller somehow, less full of life without Jaskier in it. His depression, which he has been holding at bay for most of the day, now returns to quietly envelop him as he eats. 

The bottle of wine and the food both vanish silently in the cooling emptiness of the kitchen. When he is done, Geralt carefully rinses the dishes and places them in the dishwasher, then seeks out the recycling and dumps the wine bottle into it. This done, he dithers in the kitchen. The upstairs loft and its bed beckons, but he isn’t tired, and the idea of spending time in the company of reminders of loss and failure makes him feel like he can’t breathe. He can’t ever go home, and he doesn’t want to think about that right now. 

Instead he scans the house, searching for something to do that won’t leave him feeling like he is choking on cold water. The books, normally a draw, look like too much effort to read. The CD player looks a little out of his league, and after browsing Jaskier’s music collection (heavy on ABBA, light on the hand drumming Geralt prefers,) he gives up on that, too. Finally, his eyes settle on the television. There was almost always one running somewhere on base. While he’d never particularly gotten into watching it, he knew that sometimes it could be oddly soothing. Opening another bottle of wine and grabbing his glass, he brings them over and sets them on the little end table near the couch, grabs the remote, and flicks it on. 

There isn’t much to watch at this time of night, and he ends up settling on some awful show he can’t follow about a kung-fu cowboy. It’s meaningless, and numbing. It’s something he can at least drink wine to while he watches it. The depression settles slowly into a gnawing background torment, and in it, he eventually finds a kind of quiet. After the show ends, he finds something else. When that ends, he eventually settles on a late night Looney Tunes rerun, which is at least familiar. He empties the wine bottle slowly as he watches, and when he is done, he disposes of it carefully and washes his glass before returning to the couch. 

Jaskier finds him there some hours later when he returns from the bar, the television still flickering across his sleeping face. His injured hand is cradled against his chest, and the shadows under his eyes are deep in the pale light from the screen. Tsking softly, Jaskier turns off the television and brushes his fingers carefully over Geralt’s left wrist, waking him without startling him. 

“Hey,” he whispers, hair falling in his eyes as he looks down at the exhausted man on the couch. Geralt wakes as Jaskier touches him, eyes wide and lost. He looks like he is drowning in icy water, frightened and alone. As their eyes meet, Jaskier feels like a great shard of ice leaps between them, burying itself in his heart. He reaches out on instinct, gently drawing Geralt up off of the couch. He's seen dying men before, seen the look in their eyes, and his skin prickles coldly as he sees the way Geralt is looking at him. There’s no way he can leave this man alone tonight. He wasn’t intending to get this close with Geralt this quickly, but that  _ look… _ it fills him with a quiet, abiding fear. Without another word, Jaskier leads him to his bedroom across the house. 

Geralt follows him quietly, trailing in the wake of Jaskier's warmth like a moth seeking a flame. The wine has worn off in the intervening hours, leaving nothing to blunt the emptiness and pain he is feeling. But there, in the darkness, is Jaskier, all warm skin and good smell and  _ kindness. _ He doesn’t really understand why he undresses next to him in the darkness of his bedroom, doesn’t know why he can’t just walk away and go upstairs to sleep. But, as they slide into bed together in the thick darkness of 3 am, he knows that the heat of Jaskier’s skin on his skin brings welcome relief to the desolation inside of him. He knows that the heavy weight of Jaskier’s head on his chest is oddly peaceful, that the sound of his breath in the silence is music. Laying in the darkness, he tentatively brings his arms up around the handsome man curled along the length of his body, and is rewarded by a contented sigh. Jaskier sinks heavily against him, and before long, he is asleep. Soothed, Geralt soon follows him. 

Morning comes slowly, in pieces. First, a sensation of pressure, heavy warmth holding him to the bed. Movement, the minute feeling of his rising and falling chest pressed against another breathing person. Scent, the smell of sweat and skin and linen. And as he wakes more fully, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Jaskier. The elfin man is lying fully on his chest, stomach resting between his thighs, quietly studying his sleeping face. 

When his eyes open, Jaskier’s thoughtful expression transforms into a sleepy smile. “Good morning,” he hums affectionately, stroking his hand across Geralt’s broad chest. The warm weight of him is alien but also deeply soothing, and Geralt’s arm instinctively tightens where it has come to rest around Jaskier’s waist. Geralt can feel his heart speeding up as a tangle of longing and confusion and deeply-ingrained fear wells up in him. 

Atop him, Jaskier firms his strokes across his chest, starting at the center and kneading outwards, providing deep, calming pressure. Geralt struggles with the fear while those soothing hands work. As consciousness trickles back in he realizes that, unlike most of his life, there’s no one here to discover him in bed with a male lover. No reason to be afraid, or to run. Safe. 

He shivers a little as Jaskier looks up at him from under his eyelashes, feeling a spike of heat run from the crown of his head to the base of his spine, breaking up the icy grip of the fear. And when Jaskier darts his tongue over his lower lip before he leans up to catch Geralt’s mouth in a kiss, Geralt groans helplessly with pleasure. Feeling like he’s falling off of a cliff, he uses his good arm to draw Jaskier in closer. Their legs tangle and he shivers again, heartsick and dizzy with desire.

Jaskier gives a small murmur of pleasure into Geralt’s mouth, and Geralt feels his mind melting, the soft little sound washing away his worries in a flood of sudden hunger. He parts his lips slightly, instinctively inviting, and Jaskier slides his body up a little more so that he can softly tongue into Geralt’s mouth. Geralt can feel himself getting hard where his cock is trapped against Jaskier’s stomach, pressed against firm, warm skin. Jaskier purrs and shifts, releasing it so that it’s in a more comfortable position, then delicately lowers his body again. His own cock brushes against Geralt’s thigh, hardening as they kiss. 

Geralt hums a delirious little groan, pulling him closer yet. Jaskier follows willingly, deepening their kiss, pressing his cock into the crease of Geralt’s hip as he shifts. Geralt takes a stuttering breath, the last of his mind vanishing as he feels velvety heat brush over his sensitive skin. He spreads his big hand across Jaskier’s lower back to keep the pleasurable sensation close, craving more of it. 

Jaskier gives a soft chuckle into their kiss, experimentally rocking his cock against his lover’s sensitive skin again. He is rewarded by a soft, deep moan of startled pleasure, a sound happily captured between their hungrily moving mouths. Jaskier rocks more firmly this time, drawing another sweet moan from Geralt. They begin moving together, tentatively at first, mouths and tongues and hips seeking a rhythm. As they discover a good pace, they begin to move more confidently.

The hot sensation of Jaskier’s cock rubbing along the exquisitely sensitive crease of his hip is driving Geralt crazy. It’s all he can focus on, all he can feel, and soon he is trembling with desire. His body, unused to being able to relax into a lover’s embrace, is singing with unfamiliar tension and hunger. He finds a soft cry of disappointment escaping his lips as Jaskier lifts his hips away and draws back. It only takes him a moment to realize why, however. Jaskier breaks their kiss and winks at him, then leans over him and reaches out to fumble open the drawer in the small table right next to the bed. Inside, from what Geralt can see from his vantage point, is a stash of condoms and a blue-and-white bottle of lube. 

Jaskier paws into the drawer and grabs one of the condoms, flourishing it playfully between two fingers before sitting back between Geralt’s thighs and smiling at him. Geralt gapes back at him, bewildered and so aroused he can barely feel his own face. He watches as clever fingers unwrap the condom, discarded wrapper falling to the side, watches as Jaskier reaches out and firmly grasps Geralt’s cock. A shock goes through Geralt’s body as fingers close around the base of it. He’s so sensitive that he jolts, but Jaskier is a quick study. He knows now that he has to hold firmly for it to feel good, and he does so with one hand, using the other to slide the condom skilfully down over Geralt’s aching erection. 

Geralt watches this silently, a flush of pleasure creeping up his pale cheeks. When Jaskier slides back and ducks his head down, his eyes widen, his hand instinctively coming up to hold Jaskier’s shoulder. And when Jaskier’s mouth wraps around him he growls pleasurably, a deep bass sound. Jaskier moans in response, lowering his head and taking Geralt deep. Geralt gasps, his eyes fluttering shut, and he loses himself in the wet heat of Jaskier’s hungry mouth.

Taking his own weeping cock in hand, Jaskier begins to quickly stroke himself even as his mouth works its magic upon Geralt. His eyes roll back in his head as Geralt’s hand slides from his shoulder to wind in his hair, surprisingly gentle. He was expecting the big man to fist his hair firmly, but the way Geralt holds his head is soft, almost reverent. Tender, even. That gentleness sends a spike of hot arousal all the way through Jaskier’s body, and he moans deeply around Geralt’s cock.

Geralt cries out at the feeling of vibration, his hips unintentionally bucking. He gentles his hold slightly on the back of Jaskier’s head, not wanting to choke him, but his lover just moves with him, taking the thrust like he barely even noticed it. Jaskier bobs his head as his tongue works, skillfully pulling another cry from Geralt, another bucking motion of his hips. His hand comes up and wraps firmly around the base of Geralt’s erection and then he leans forward, fist pumping his own cock rapidly as he gulps Geralt deep into his mouth again. 

“Ohhh,  _ fuck, _ ” Geralt gasps, hand spasming on the back of Jaskier’s head, feeling a hot twist deep inside of him. “Oh  _ fuck,  _ oh, oh,” he pants, half leaning up off the bed, his body curling into a knot of humming tension. Encouraged, Jaskier bobs his head faster, tongue swirling. With a sharp, sudden cry, Geralt comes, his whole body shaking with the force of the release. 

Jaskier whines happily around his cock, moving easily with Geralt as his body twists and shakes. Jaskier’s own hand works harder, faster, his breath coming in short little pants as his tongue works Geralt’s cock all the way through his orgasm. It only takes a few more quick strokes to bring himself over the edge, too. As he comes he releases Geralt from his mouth and throws his head back, releasing a ragged cry that sends a wave of hot prickles across Geralt’s skin. His seed spills between his fingers, dripping onto the sheets in the sticky, stunned silence that follows. 

Geralt drops slowly back to the bed, breathing heavily. Between his legs Jaskier lets out a breathless laugh, wiping his hand on the sheet and shaking his hair out of his eyes. Geralt rumbles out a delirious chuckle of his own, bringing his hand up to cover his face as he tries to regain his senses. Jaskier leans over to the bedside table again and pulls open the drawer, fishing out a pack of wet wipes from the depths. He wipes his hand clean, then, delicately, pulls the condom off of Geralt’s cock and knots it. Geralt twitches and shudders, reaching out to grab Jaskier’s shoulder again; Not to stop him, but because the sensation is so strong. 

Jaskier smiles dopily, giving Geralt’s thick thigh a kiss before he rises to dispose of the trash. As he does so he passes a wipe to Geralt, who cleans himself gingerly as he watches Jaskier walk across the room to retrieve the wastebasket from beside his desk. He brings it back and sets it near the bed, then crawls back up, laying himself along Geralt’s side lazily. 

Geralt tosses the wipe into the trash and leans back, making room for Jaskier to lay himself out along the length of his body. The warmth of all that skin pressing against his own is delicious, and he finds himself feeling greedy for more of it. He carefully rolls and tangles himself in Jaskier, pulling his lover up against him until his chin is resting on top of Jaskier’s head and his arms are draped around him, holding him close. Jaskier hums contentedly, wrapping his own arms around Geralt, and together they drift into a sleepy daze. Geralt is quietly stunned, but the heavy satisfaction he feels spreads warmly across his body, wiping away some of his fear and shame, dragging him slowly down back into sleep.


	8. I've Met Your Idiot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally get to meet the mysterious "Y" for the first time! Geralt and Jaskier get blown out of the water by a very angry wife. And MUCH DISCUSSION IS HAD BY ALL. Now we start getting into the background of these characters and learn a little more about them. Are Geralt and Jaskier doomed, or is there more going on here than meets the eye? 
> 
> Note on language:   
> Kochany = "sweetheart" (Polish)  
> Mój drogi = "my dear" (Polish)  
> Neshama shelì = "Sweetheart/my soul" (Hebrew)

After that, the days pick up a rhythm. Jaskier makes coffee and breakfast in the mornings and gets Geralt set up for the day. They talk over breakfast, sharing small personal details and discovering mutual interests, slowly getting to know and like one another. Jaskier talks about events at the bar from the night before, and Geralt listens with cautious interest, becoming enamored with the tales he brings home despite his misgivings. Geralt in his turn reveals small stories about himself, favorite childhood treats and places that he’s seen as he’s traveled. Then they clean up the dishes together and Jaskier leaves to go about his daily activities. 

Geralt putters around the house, carefully avoiding the attic except to retrieve his clothes, unable to cope with the memories that swarm around the boxes stored up there. He drinks wine, watches television, and naps until Jaskier returns for dinner. They eat together, talk more, Jaskier goes to work, and when he returns, he always retrieves Geralt from the couch and takes him to bed. When they wake, they make love, shower, and have coffee, the cycle beginning again. 

The morning of the appointment, they wake and couple one last time, tangling together. They sink into each other, hungry mouths and seeking hands, soft cries and deep groans, collapsing in a sticky, happy knot of satiation at the end. Then they rise, get clean, eat breakfast. Geralt dons his outdated clothing and they head out the door together to Jaskier’s car in the early morning heat. 

When they park, the morning air outside the car is heavy and sticky. They walk side by side, already starting to move in the subtle sync of lovers, so much more comfortable with one another than they were on their last visit to the hospital. The air conditioning inside is a welcome contrast to the sticky heat of the outside. Geralt’s follow up is in a different wing of the hospital than the emergency department, so they venture cautiously into the maze of a building. After being pointed to the correct location by a woman at a desk who gives Geralt an inexplicably odd look, they make their way to the waiting room. It’s quiet, too early for many people to be there. As they push through the door, Geralt scans the room. Halfway through the door he stops dead in his tracks, Jaskier colliding into his back. 

“Ow, Geralt, what?” Jaskier complains mildly, stepping out from behind his lover just as a woman’s shout breaks the silence, startling the few people in the waiting room.

“Geralt!” They turn to look as a small woman in an impeccable black suit, white blouse, and classic jewelry snaps to her feet. Her dark, curly hair is gathered with a clasp at the back of her head, and her light brown complexion is highlighted by impeccable makeup. She advances on them with a stormy expression on her elegant face, violet eyes flashing. Geralt goes as stiff, the little color he has in his pale complexion draining away while Jaskier looks on in shock. 

She squares up with Geralt and locks eyes with him, a folder with x-rays partially sticking out of it clutched in her delicate looking fingers. Geralt gives her a lost, mortified look, then suddenly ducks as she reaches up and smacks him harmlessly (albeit noisily) across the head with the folder.

“Geralt Rivii! What the _bloody fucking hell is wrong with you?_ What _happened_ to you? Where the _fuck_ have you been?” She hollers in a burst of fury, her small body shaking with the force of it. “Your shite showed up on my doorstep with no explanation! I had to track you halfway across the bloody globe! It’s been two weeks since your last appointment and I’ve been ripping this bloody fucking city apart looking for you! Why the fuck didn’t you call me? _I thought you died!_ ” Pulling back, she smacks him with the folder again passionately. “Why the fuck did you make yourself so hard to find?” Smack! “Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?” Smack!

She rifles through the folder, pulling out the x-rays and flourishing them in his face. “And what the bloody fuck is this? Are you insane? Did you get into a fight? I can’t believe you!” She reaches up and whacks him resoundingly across the head with the x-rays this time, eliciting a satisfying ‘thwap’ sound. He grimaces guiltily as she hits him, seeming more chagrined than alarmed by this whole display. Despite the onslaught his body language toward her is gentle, as if he is patiently waiting her out. 

Jaskier, behind him, has recovered from his shock and steps out to try and herd the woman away from him. “Oh, hey now,” he exclaims, stepping forward with his hands held out to try and stop her. “That’s-”

“Who the fuck are you?” She rounds on Jaskier, her violet eyes dark with fury.

Jaskier steps back quickly, his back hitting the doorframe and his heart beginning to hammer. She looks slight, but he has the sensation from the way she moves that she is perfectly capable of breaking his arm without batting an eye. “I’m-” 

“Yen,” Geralt groans, mortified. “Leave him alone.” 

“Who the hell is this, Geralt?” The woman, Yennefer, turns back to him with her eyes flashing. She’s so upset that she finds herself slipping into her native tongue of Hebrew, English temporarily lost. <<What the fuck have you been doing? Have you been doing this idiot?!  _ Two! Weeks!>> _ She hits him about the head and shoulders with the x-rays, which wobble and pop with every strike. She pauses for a moment, riffling furiously though the folder, takes out one piece of paper in particular, and hits him across the head with it, too. <<And I'm so glad,>> she snaps, <<that you don't have any sexually transmitted infections! Good to know finding that out was more important than calling. Your. Family!>> She stuffs the paper back into the folder, then punctuates the end of her sentence with several more harmless but noisy wobbling blows from the x-rays. 

Geralt ducks awkwardly as her strike lands. Yennefer had a tendency to be very passionate when she was upset, but she would never actually harm him. He gives her an embarrassed look, rounding his shoulders and allowing the blows to land without complaint. “Yen-” he starts, but she cuts him off. 

<<Don’t you ‘Yen’ me, Geralt,>> she snaps. <<I’ve been worried sick about you! Where have you been? What happened to you?!>> And just like that, she gathers him into her arms with all the passion she had been using to yell. She crushes him against herself, pressing her cheek to his and rocking him fiercely, her eyes suddenly burning. The solid warmth of him makes her heart hammer with relief, her hands finally knowing what her eyes can see; that Geralt is safe. That he’s alive.

Jaskier looks on at this display in dismayed shock, watching the fierce woman Geralt in her arms. She is petite, but she moves with surety and strength. He can see Geralt relaxing into her, and he realizes that whatever is happening here, they must be very close. Then he sees it. On her left hand is a ring, a stylized lilac flower set in amethyst and diamond winking in the light. Below it is a wedding band, plain smooth gold encircling her delicate finger. He swallows, getting a sinking feeling.

Geralt leans into her with a soft noise, a forgotten breath rushing out of him. The scent of lilac and gooseberries enfolds him, and at last, he knows he’s found home. It has been four years since he’d last had her in his arms, and as she gathers him close it hits him all in a rush. <<Forgive me,>> he groans into her shoulder, arms coming up jerkily to wrap around her slight frame. << _ Neshama shelì _ , please forgive me.>> His throat closes back up, a hard knot burning where his voice should be. This is who and what he’d been running from, and now that he’d been found, he felt like his world was collapsing around him all over again. Behind him, Jaskier clears his throat nervously, his back still up against the frame of the door. 

“Ah,” he starts, and the woman turns to him again, her expression murderous. 

“Back off, Skippy.” Yennefer snarls. 

Jaskier startles, wishing his back wasn’t already against something solid so that he could back away more. Every instinct in his body is telling him that this woman would eat him alive if given the chance, and he isn’t interested in finding out if that’s true.

“I’ll deal with you later,” She threatens. Then she turns, her body language softening as she looks at Geralt. “ _ Kochany _ ,” she says, giving him a gentle pull. “Come with me.” She gives the receptionist a pointed glance. The receptionist gives her a knowing smile in return and nods towards a room in the back. They’d talked earlier when Yennefer had come in to wait for Geralt, so none of this display was a surprise to her. She’d already given Yennefer permission to use the room if Geralt actually showed up. 

Without further ceremony Yennefer leads Geralt into the exam room, leaving Jaskier dithering in the waiting room. Nearby, an older gentleman shoots him a sympathetic glance over his magazine. Jaskier squirms nervously, then glances at the receptionist. She gestures with her thumb towards the room they are in and mouths, “Wife.” 

Jaskier curses internally, grimacing. He’s still standing in the doorway; he  _ could _ leave, just get out of here before this whole shitty mess lit on fire. When he was younger, that’s precisely what he would have done; fled. There’s years of hard work between him and that flighty young man though. As he’d aged, Jaskier had come to value honesty and reliability. Being a business owner, being a teacher, had forced him to grow deeper roots. 

Besides, despite the short time he’d known him, he had become deeply fond of Geralt. Maybe even dangerously so. Certainly far more than he’d expected to on their first meeting. No matter how angry his wife had looked, Jaskier couldn’t just leave Geralt here. He’d rather face the music than abandon him. Body singing with trepidation, Jaskier pushes off of the doorjamb and finds himself a seat in the waiting room.

Meanwhile, inside the exam room Geralt sits with his elbows on his knees. He settles in and gets comfortable. Yennefer had been quiet until she’d gotten him settled gently in the chair, but then she had turned to look at him and her jaw had stiffened, her eyes flashing. At that point, a twenty-two year friendship’s worth of experience told him that he had better buckle down and get ready for the storm. Yennefer had a way of needing to holler things out when things got too big, and his discharge and subsequent disappearance was… big didn’t even begin to describe it. It was a catastrophic change in their lives. He watches as she drops the folder and begins pacing, starting to list off the many ways in which he’s upset her recently. 

His body feels distant and numb as he sits there, Yennefer’s terrified, angry tirade washing over him like water. He is swimming in re-awakened shock, the pain he’d been in on the day he’d left Fort Morhen coming roaring back to life with a vengeance. He hadn’t ever expected to see her again, much less find her here at the hospital while he was in the company of a lover. If there was a way he could crawl out of his body and just vanish to escape everything he’s feeling, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Instead he sits, elbows on his knees, hands coming up to grip the back of his neck as he floats in a haze. Foggily, he realizes she’s switched from Hebrew to Polish, his own first language, something she only yells in when she’s  _ really _ upset with him. 

She shouts about how hard she had to search for him after the boxes of his things arrived. He wasn’t in Somalia, wasn’t at the army base he’d been dumped at, storage unit empty, all papers sent to his P.O. box. She’d been searching the city block by block for him, checking the morgues, checking the hospitals. No phone call. No letter. Nothing! Every now and then he tries to apologize, or explain, but every time he does so she just ups the volume, becoming more and more agitated. 

Geralt nods occasionally, eventually giving up on speaking. The scolding feels well-deserved, his pain becoming focused and raw as it is lanced by the heat of her words. And he’s handling it, he’s fine, until her voice takes on a hysterical edge and he looks up to see that there are tears running down her face. Yennefer shouts frequently, but she almost  _ never  _ cries, and the sight terrifies him. His heart feels like it drops to the floor and shatters at the sight of her tears, his own eyes beginning to burn.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you died, Geralt! I thought you were  _ dead! _ ” She weeps, voice raw with grief and fear. He reaches his arms out to her and she flies into them, settling into him for only a moment before peppering his chest and shoulders with light blows. He soaks them up without comment, accustomed to her passion, accepting it. His eyes burn harder as her tears drop onto his shirt, and soon tears are spilling down his own cheeks unbidden. 

As the first one splashes on her arm she stops, stilled by shock. She rarely cries, but Geralt weeping is unheard of. Shaken, she presses her face to his and wraps her arms fiercely around him. Their tears mingle as they begin to cry in earnest, crushing one another close in the little plastic chair. The years since they’d last touched seem to melt between them, washed away in the hot flood of tears.

Some time later their grips begin to loosen. He nuzzles into her cheek and neck damply, sniffing, and she strokes his face, wiping away the tears and smoothing some of the sadness away. Swallowing hard, he turns and presses his face into her hair, comforted immediately by the feeling of her curls against his nose and lips, sinking into the smell of lilac and gooseberry. She allows this, pressing her face into his shoulder. Eventually she heaves a shuddering sigh, sitting back and wiping mascara from under her eyes with sharp motions, clearly embarrassed to have been seen with tears on her face. 

He swallows down the lump in his throat, drinking her in as she sits there wiping her tears away. Her hair surrounds him in a cloud of soft scent. It was a smell he’d come to associate with safety, love,  _ home. _ He never thought he’d get to see her again, or smell the sweetness of her hair. Grimacing, he says, “Yen… I know I should have called-” 

“Shut up,” she replies fondly, cutting him off. “Just… oh, you are such an  _ idiot. _ Be quiet, I’m still too angry with you right now.” She presses kisses to his forehead, to his cheeks, to his nose, then starts wiping his face clean and dry with a handful of tissues. “I’m so angry I could just kill you, do you know that?” Flicking the tissues aside, she continues, “All I want is to know that you’re safe,  _ mój drogi. _ I can’t believe you were too stupid to even call me.” She brings her hands up to cup his cheeks, looking into his eyes. “Always call me. I’ll  _ always _ pick up the phone.”

“I know,” he replies thickly, taking her hands in his own as best he can. He looks down and kisses her fingers, ashamed and heartsore. “I’m a fucking idiot, I know. I’m sorry.” 

“Hush,” she snaps, but there is no real heat in it as she gazes at him, a sad smile starting to play at the corner of her full lips. “I’m the only one who gets to call you that.” She presses another kiss to his forehead, and stops as she hears a knock on the door. 

“Not now, we’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she calls, when the doctor asks if they’re ready to be seen. Then she turns back to Geralt, her expression softening further. 

“Now. Who was that you came in with?” She runs small graceful fingers across his hair, stroking it. As she does so she notes with concern how much longer than usual it already is. It’s not like Geralt to let his hair go like this, even with a hand injury. He’d kept his hair the exact same length for the entire time she’d known him. An uneasy prickle crawls over her back. 

“He’s… uh. Jaskier,” Geralt says lamely, and Yennefer is shaken from her unease by the astonishing sight of him reddening visibly when he says Jaskier’s name. She can count on one hand the number of times he’s cried, and in he only very rarely blushes. She tilts her head to the side and ponders this, taken aback. 

“Just a friend?” She asks. There is a gently teasing lilt to her question. 

Geralt is surprised by her tone of voice, and his eyes flick up briefly to hers, full of hopeful but apprehensive. “No. Maybe. I… I don’t know. It’s complicated,” he stammers, then grimaces and cuts a glance at the door. 

Yennefer’s lips quirk, and she turns him back with a finger on his chin so that she can study his face. Now  _ this _ was interesting. Had he found himself a lover? 

“Has he been good to you? Are you safe?” She presses, looking into his eyes. He gives her a mutinous look and she lets him look away again, a knowing smile playing about her lips. Once she lets him go, he nods. A flicker of relief crosses her face, followed by worried curiosity. 

“Good. Is that where you’ve been this whole time? With him?” He nods again, starting to twist away from her, but she grabs his shoulders and steadies him. “Hey. No, Geralt. Of all the many things I am…” she sighs, eyeing him with fond exasperation, “ _ absolutely furious _ about, you finding a man isn’t even on the list. You could work on your timing.” A smile cracks her expression, and Geralt huffs softly, a small smile of his own crinkling the corners of his eyes. “But it’s ok. It’s okay. The being with a man part is ok. I’m scared that you didn’t call me, and later you can tell me why. But for now I’m just glad you’re safe,  _ mój drogi. _ ” She pulls him in and kisses his forehead, squeezing him against her. “Have you been intimate?” 

“ _ Yen. _ ”

“I have a right to know,” she presses, cocking her head to the side and looking down at him. 

He grumbles quietly, shame churning in his stomach. Yennefer knows he prefers men in his bed and has always supported him, but he’s never stopped being afraid to talk about it. When he realizes she’s not going to relent until he answers though, he reluctantly nods his head. 

Yennefer’s stomach does a little flip. It’s not a terrible thing in and of itself, but it’s not like her deeply closeted husband to jump into bed with a stranger without fleeing immediately afterwards. Much less allow them to do something as intimate as take him to the hospital. The worry that she’s been feeling sharpens in pitch, and she takes his face in her hand, tilting it up. 

“Did he stop you from calling me?” She eyes him seriously, keeping him from looking away. 

He flickers a tired almost-smile and shakes his head. That was Yen, looking out for him whether he wanted her to or not. “No. That was all me _. _ He didn’t know. Wouldn’t have told him even if he asked.”

She gives him a skeptical moue, but smiles when he tips his head up and fully meets her gaze. The eye contact is reassuring. “Fine _ , _ ” she hums. “I believe you.” The gnawing ache that’s been in the pit of her stomach since the boxes arrived at her apartment finally begins to ease. Geralt is here, he is safe. Whatever he’d been up to with the man out in the waiting room, he seemed to be more or less in one piece. 

Then, she remembers something they’d discussed many years ago and an impish light comes into her eyes. Stroking his cheek warmly, her smile becomes a smirk. “Is he your boyfriend?” she teases ever so lightly. “Did you go and finally find yourself a boyfriend?”

Geralt grits his teeth, rolling his eyes back in his head. “Yen, I don’t want to talk about this right now.” 

She can tell by the flush creeping up his neck how embarrassed he is. Years of experience in reading him tell her that what he’s hiding is a ‘yes,’ and her smirk widens into an impish grin. “He  _ is!  _ Oh, Geralt, we have got to talk about your timing  _ kochany. _ ” She chuckles quietly, straightening the collar of his old shirt.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Yen. I barely know him,” Geralt protests, mortified. Once Yen got started, though, she was hard to stop.

“Did he stick his hands in your pants?”

“Yen…”

“Did you live in his house while he had his hands in them?”

“ _ Yen, _ ” he groans, appalled. She arches her eyebrow at him, waiting for him to cave. He glares at her, but it doesn’t take long for his willpower to buckle under the weight of her playful, knowing gaze. “Yes,” he admits, sighing. 

“Well then, if he hasn’t made you his boyfriend he  _ should _ have, and I think I’m going to go make his life a living hell as payback,” she teases, grinning wolfishly. 

Geralt’s eyes widen in horror. “No, Yen-”

“I told you if you ever got a boyfriend I reserved the right to terrorize him a little…” she says with her eyes twinkling. “This is even better. I think I’ll go do that while you’re getting your hand looked at _. _ ” 

“Yen…” he pleads, eyes widening in dismay. “Please don’t…”

“Hey! I  _ am your wife. _ I get to show newcomers who’s boss,” she replies lightly, smiling down at him as she stands. Geralt presses his lips together and glares at her, but this is an old argument. Deep down he knows that he’d already lost it over a decade ago. After a moment he shrugs, unable to summon a counter-argument strong enough to deter her. Saying ‘That’s none of your business’ to an investigative reporter was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and he knew better by now. 

Pleased by his concession, she arches her eyebrows and gestures towards the door. “I’ll be out in the waiting room.” She pauses, fingering the strap of her purse. “We need to talk when you get out. I have a hotel room, will you come back to it with me?” 

He frowns as she asks him the question, thinking it over. In the roughly two weeks since he’s met Jaskier he has gotten accustomed to his company. Profoundly enjoyed it, to be honest. The warm solace he’d found in Jaskier’s arms had been one of the most profound things he’d ever experienced. He doesn’t want to just uproot from his house and bed. But Yennefer is his home, his safe place. It had been four years since he’d last held her, and his heart was raw with the pain of it. 

He’d been running from her because he wanted to protect her, protect his whole family from his shameful behavior and all of its fallout. In one fell swoop he’d lost his job, his ability to vote, even his right to own a firearm. It felt like he’d lost his right to fatherhood years ago, and after this last mess he felt like he’d lost the last of his remaining right to be a husband, too. 

Despite everything, Yennefer had flown across an ocean and spent weeks scouring the city trying to find him. If that wasn’t love, then nothing was. Now that she has found him he knows he can’t run anymore, no matter how badly he wants to avoid confronting his mistakes. Holding her in his arms after so many years had gotten him by the roots of his soul. He would rather be with her than anywhere else in the world. He nods cautiously. “I’ll come.”

“Good.” She strokes his cheek fondly one more time, then pulls a compact out of her purse and flicks it open. After inspecting and repairing her makeup, she says. “I’ll see you in a little moment,  _ kochany. _ I won’t kill him, I promise.” Her eyes glitter with laughter as she closes it with a click and stuffs it back into her bag. “Not much, anyway.”

“Yen,” he grumbles again, but she turns on her heel and leaves, giving him no chance to argue, stepping lightly to the side as the doctor returns to check on them. 

“He’s all yours,” she says, sounding satisfied. She breezes around the bemused doctor and heads out to the waiting room, leaving the two men to their business. 

_ “This water tastes like plastic,” Yennefer complained, grimacing at her mug. Beside her, her companion grinned.  _

_ “Better than tasting like having a runny ass at two AM when you’re out in the field,” he rejoined easily, flicking through a stack of photos.  _

_ “The tea isn’t any better,” she replied, not about to be dissuaded. “It tastes like old shoes. What the bloody hell did they do to it to make it taste like old shoes?”  _

_ “Probably from the old boot tongues we put in it for flavor,” a dry voice came from over their shoulders. Geralt leaned against the wall, eyeing the corridor outside the door impassively. Yennefer’s companion snorted and shook his head as she gave Geralt a dirty look. _

_ “No one asked you, Lieutenant Boot,” she groused over her shoulder. Geralt shrugged, unphased. Yennefer returned to her thick binder, taking out pages, rearranging them, making notes, placing them back in. It was late, but there was too much work to be done to sleep just yet.  _

_ “How about you make yourself useful and bring some of that awful bloody coffee you Americans drink?” she said, after a long silence.  _

_ “Not my job,” Geralt replied calmly, not budging an inch. She lifted her head to glare at him. _

_ “You’re not good for anything else, I don’t see why not,” she grumbled idly, flicking a page back and forth as she compared two different sets of notes. Again, he didn’t budge. _

_ But the next day at breakfast, when she turned away for a moment to speak to her companion, she turned back and found two boxes of apple juice at her elbow. Geralt was across the room by then, quietly getting himself another cup of coffee. Her companion nudged her and smiled, and she shifted to get a better look at the young soldier’s broad back, eyeing him speculatively. Maybe not so useless after all.  _

Out in the hallway, Yennefer composes herself. Now that Geralt is safe for the moment she can focus on this new development. Right now she is more intrigued than upset by this mystery not-a-boyfriend, but bubbling underneath is a deep well of suspicion and protective anger. She’d spent a great deal of her life watching over her big idiot, and she knew he had a tendency to get entangled with people who didn’t respect his boundaries. Given that, she wants to find out what kind of man this Jaskier is. As a veteran investigative reporter she’s certain she has the skills to find out anything she wants. She adopts a cold, stormy expression of displeasure before entering the waiting room, striding up and standing over Jaskier. 

Jaskier leans back as she approaches, a look of deep worry crossing his face as she looms over him.  _ Here we go, _ he thinks apprehensively, taking in her glare. This bit with the angry spouse? This was his least favorite part of being accountable for his actions. Some traitor voice in the back of his head notes wryly that at least he’s had practice, though. And good thing, too; the woman’s glare made him want to turn tail and run, and it takes a conscious will of effort to stay put.

“Yennefer Rivii.” She introduces herself with a voice like a steel knife, sticking out her hand. “Geralt’s wife.” 

Jaskier tentatively shakes it. Her skin is cool, and she has a surprisingly strong grip, confirming his earlier impression about the ease with which she could break him. Yikes. What had he gotten himself into this time?

“Come with me.” She gestures to the far corner of the waiting room, around the other side of the reception desk. There is no one over there, and there is a nook full of chairs behind the large fish tank that is buzzing and humming quietly away. A little box of children’s puzzles and books sits in the corner. They should be able to have a quiet discussion there without being overheard. 

Jaskier hesitates until she glares at him, then rises uncomfortably and allows himself to be herded to the nook. As he grimaces and ruffles the back of his head nervously, he wishes he either had better taste in men or more common sense, preferably both. He sits cautiously in the seat that she indicates, watching for any sudden movements. She sits crisply in the chair across from him, eyeing him up and down. Jaskier squirms under her silent gaze as her violet eyes rake over him, taking in his scruffy, comfortable red tank top and worn denim jean shorts. He finds himself desperately wishing he was better dressed to meet his lover’s  _ wife. _ Good grief. 

“So. Who are you and what the hell have you been doing with my husband?” She inquires, her tone icy. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks, and somehow you’re involved. I damn well better get the whole story, you little tosser, or we’re going to have a problem.”

Jaskier gives her a guilty look. “Look, I-”

“Name first, please,” Yennefer cuts in crisply. “Then apologies.” 

Jaskier gulps awkwardly, taken aback. “Uh,” he dithers. His fingers dance and flicker, pulling at the hems of his shorts. “My name is Jaskier-”

“Buttercup? I don’t think so. Try again.” Yennefer interrupts him coldly, watching with pleasure as he flinches. She had learned from years of experience in her job that if you could keep them off balance, they’d tell you almost anything.

Being called on his name two times in one month was something Jaskier had never experienced before, and he didn’t like it. He grimaces, then reluctantly says, “Julian Alfred Pankratz.” He throws up his hands, exasperated, and continues. “And if you tell anyone I’m going to give you a problem right back! There are some things that just shouldn’t be said aloud and my godawful middle name is one of them.”

Yen’s lips quirk as she conceals a smile, then she narrows her eyes at him. “Fine. Now you tell me why Geralt is with  _ you _ out here in east nowhere, New England.” She cocks her head. “And before you start, let me just say- I’ve been an investigative journalist for over twenty years, so believe me when I tell you I can find out if you’ve lied.” 

Leaning back into his seat, Jaskier eyes Yennefer uneasily. She glares back at him, delicate and fierce as a bird of prey. He wasn’t intending to lie in the first place; the idea of pissing this woman off any further is giving him cold sweats.  _ This _ , he thinks furiously to himself,  _ is why you ask questions before the pants come off, idiot. You know better than this, why did you do this again? _ His stomach flutters and spins as he watches her sitting across from him. It takes him a long moment to decide where to start.

“I ah… run a gay bar down near the docks, close to Fort Morhen,” he begins cautiously. “The Pegasus. I met your husband on Pride. The parade had just gone by and this…” he drops his face into his hands, mortified, “Absolutely gorgeous man comes walking up the street.” He moans through his fingers. “Oh lord. And so I offered him a popsicle.” 

Yennefer smirks at the top of Jaskier’s bent head, enjoying his discomfiture. As long as he is no threat to Geralt she isn’t going to terrorize him forever, but right now seeing him squirm is extremely entertaining. 

“And ah. I noticed he had hurt his hand. He seemed…” he waves his hands anxiously, trying to describe the situation clearly. “He seemed a little dazed, so I brought him into the bar and got him some water. Um. Fixed up his hand for him.” Jaskier sits back and pauses, picking his next words carefully. “The last year and a half or so has been really bad in terms of... I’ve seen a lot of soldiers struggling since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. A lot of guys coming off of the army and navy bases with this, ugh, this really awful lost look on their faces. A lot of them don’t do very well. The army just kind of dumps them on their ass and it’s really unfair.” Jaskier has watched too many men pass through his part of town looking haunted, and then vanish. It’s unsettling to him, and it makes him unspeakably angry and sad that he has no way to help most of them. He gropes for words, trying to make Yennefer understand.

“When I see them now, I try to help. At least a little bit,” he says lamely, feeling his throat closing up on him as he looks up and sees that her glare take on a whole new heat. 

“So, what. You’re running a fuck and release program?” Yennefer asks sharply, a note of distaste entering her voice. Was he a predator? Not only was he here with Geralt when he had no business being here, but it sounded like he may have taken other soldiers home like this before. If he preyed on broken men in desperate circumstances, he was about to find out he’d bitten off a whole hell of a lot more than he could chew. 

Jaskier flinches, shaking his head as understanding flashes across his face. He hadn’t meant to imply that he’d been taking them home with him, but it clearly had sounded that way. By the look on her face she was now well on her way to hating him. He scrambles to explain, burning with embarrassment. “No, nothing like that! I don't usually take s… strange soldiers home off the street. I swear to god, he’s the only one I’ve brought home. To my house. I meant nice like… like free sandwiches at the bar. Not- Oh god,” he buries his face in his hands and groans, then takes a deep breath and tries again. “If I’m going to take someone  _ home _ with me I’m usually…” he blushes, gesturing his hands illustratively, “Uh. Pretty up front. I promise that’s not what it was about.” He shoots her a desperately uncomfortable look, praying that she will understand. 

She relaxes slightly as she hears that, mollified. He looks nervous as hell, but he isn’t dropping any tells that he’s lying as far as she can see. Instead, he is giving her an earnest look, clearly frazzled by the whole conversation. “All right,” she muses. “What  _ did _ you mean, then?” 

Jaskier blows out a slow breath, and worries at his lip for a second. Then he says, “He just seemed really… I’ve never seen. I’ve rarely seen a man look so devastated. So I thought, I don’t know. I’ll feed him some lunch, make sure that his miserable fucking day has a little bright spot in it. I felt like it was the least I could do.” 

Yennefer nods, settling back to listen. Her heart aches to think of Geralt lost out there alone, probably too ashamed to call home. Maybe he’d been lucky to have someone catch him before he could fall through the cracks. She studies Jaskier carefully, listening with the full weight of her attention. 

“So…” Jaskier hesitates, eyeing her nervously. Then he sighs, sensing he’d better be complete in his retelling. “When he finished eating he looked like he was about to fall off the stool. He looked like hell. I felt bad for him. I had to open soon and I thought he might get overwhelmed…” He shoots Yennefer a pleading glance, hoping what he’s about to say next doesn’t come across the wrong way. “Um. I thought it would be cruel to kick him out when he was in such a bad way, so I put him in my office instead, there’s a little…” he pinches the bridge of his nose between one hand and waves the other. “A little camp bed back there I use when I stay too late with the books.” He holds up his hands rapidly in a warding gesture as she draws back, about to say something. “I promise I’m not a predator. It wasn’t like that! Just to sleep! I swear I left him in there and he fell asleep. I figured he’d do better after a rest and then I could, I don’t know, send him on his way.”

Yennefer brings her fingers to her lips, giving him a considering look. “That doesn’t explain how he’s still with you two weeks later,” she points out. This was the part that made her the most uneasy. If Geralt ever got up the courage to be intimate with anyone, he usually fled immediately afterwards. Staying would lead to the danger of discovery, and Geralt had spent his life protecting himself and his family fiercely from the kind of attention that would bring. 

“Uhm.” Jaskier squirms, feeling put on the spot. “Well. About that. He uhm. Let me backtrack a little bit, he.” Sucking in a deep breath to quell his stammering, he closes his eyes. Something about the way the woman is looking at him makes his blood freeze, and he is having trouble thinking. Groaning, Jaskier shakes his head and tries again. 

“Okay. So, what happened is that I had to fire my bartender during the rush. It’s a long story. But I got back to my office, and he… Geralt was sitting there watching me try to find a backup on Pride, and he just… offered to help. And I was…” he spreads his hands out expressively in front of him, “I didn’t think he could do it, but he’s…”

“Surprising,” Yennefer finishes, her lips quirking into the slightest of smiles. “Yes. He is. He’s quite the master cocktail maker.” She allows the smile to widen slightly, examining her nails. “I suppose at least  _ something _ came out of all the time he spent glued to those damn mixology manuals. It’s something of a special interest of his.” Her eyes twinkle. Glued was an understatement. Geralt had a growing collection of the manuals, and had memorized the measures in every one of them. “He makes a mean Metropolitan.” She comments, flicking her gaze back up. “Continue.”

“He does,” Jaskier says weakly, feeling rather like she’s looking right through him. “Uhm. I was a little at loose ends and I thought… why the hell not.” He flings his hands up. “The worst that was going to happen was getting shut down, and that was already a possibility anyway after the fuck up from the man I fired, so I just… ah, sent him to it. Stuck him behind the bar with my bar back and let him at it.”

Another secretive little smile flickers around Yennefer’s lips. “How did he do?” She inquires. 

“He was… amazing.” Jaskier shakes his head and gives a breathless little chuckle. “Ah, he had a little trouble at first, but I never had to step off the door to get involved. And by the end of the night he had his sea legs under him,” he breaks off, waving off the poor phrasing, realizing he is speaking to an Army wife, “So to speak, and uh.” He laughs. “He got quite a few tips. I was impressed.”

Yennefer smirks, looking obscurely pleased by this. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re here now,” she presses. 

“Um, no. You’re right, it doesn’t. So.” Jaskier scrubs his face again, feeling his whole body surge with nerves. “So. After the other employees left, he’s still sitting there in my bar, and I realize he probably doesn’t have a safe place to go for the night. A lot of the soldiers who end up homeless around here they… that’s how it started. Getting kicked off base and having no place to go. And he’d just done me a good turn. So. Um.” 

"So you took him home and did him a good turn?" She replies dryly, her voice still pitched under the hum of the aquarium so that the other occupants of the waiting room can’t hear them.

"Oh! God, no. I have a private loft above my house. Got it's own key and everything! I promise it wasn't like that. I mean. Oh god. He's beautiful please don't misunderstand me but-" Jaskier babbles, caught off guard. Of all the impressions he would have hoped to make on a lover’s family, this is  _ not _ it. He’d hoped that the next family he met would be at a nice little brunch or something pleasant, not another round of dealing with an angry spouse.

"Stop!" She cuts him off with a curt gesture. "Stop babbling. Get to the point."

Frazzled, Jaskier grimaces and nods, gathering his wits. "Right. Point was. I took him home and sent him up to the loft. By himself! And um. I have plenty of space in my house. So I just thought I'd let him stay until he got his legs under him. I liked him, please don’t misunderstand me, but I wasn’t.” He knuckles his eyebrows, grimacing, trying to keep his thoughts gathered. “It wasn’t about trying to get laid. It really wasn’t. And he um. He broke his hand. So that's how we got to the hospital." He trails off, his voice abandoning him under the heat of Yennefer's gaze. His throat bobs visibly as he swallows. 

"I see." She says, icily. "And he's just… what, stayed in the attic these last few weeks?" 

Her violet gaze pierces Jaskier, making him feel like he is being dissected. "Well, no-" he squirms uncomfortably. 

"Explain." She says, cutting him off again. 

"Oh, god. Um. Do I really need to-"

"I have friends who can help me hide the body. Please try me." 

“All right,” he grimaces, feeling a rush of shame and discomfort. “I’m sorry, all right, um. Can I just say that I am  _ very _ stupid and  _ very _ sorry, before I tell you the rest of this story?” A brief huff escapes Yennefer, and he can’t quite tell if she’s amused or if she’s angry. 

She shakes her head at him and gestures for him to keep talking. Internally, she’s torn between being alarmed and being amused. The more she watches this man, listens to him, absorbs his body language and tics, the less she worries that he is lying to her or hurting Geralt. He is like a big awkward colt, all long limbs, nervy movements, and honest terror at her presence. This sounded more and more like a horny idiot story about to happen. She suppresses a smile, watching as he squirms. 

“All right. So. Oh god. So the next night after I helped him empty out his storage unit, I cooked him dinner. And maybe I had a little too much wine while I was making it. Um. And he’s really… oh god. I mean, you know, you  _ married  _ him. He’s really charming.” 

Yennefer watches coolly as Jaskier vibrates with nerves, trying to keep his voice steady. Internally though, she smirks. Called it. 

“I walked him to the door so that he could go back to the loft. He. Ugh,” he stops and scrubs his face again, missing her growing expression of pleasure at his embarrassment. His stomach aches and rolls mercilessly, but he forges onward. Better to get it all out in the open now, rather than force her to drag it out of him. He gets the strong sense she will happily do so if he makes her. 

“I think I kissed him first. I don’t know. We kissed. Things snowballed. We had sex… oh god. Clearly I should have asked more questions first. Um. I’m really sorry I didn’t ask more questions first-”

Yennefer puts up her hand. “Stop.” She commands, then goes quiet, eyeing Jaskier up and down. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” Aside from the initial upset at the beginning of the conversation, nothing he’d said had particularly alarmed her. Bit by bit, she begins to relax. Had Geralt really just found a nice man?

Jaskier blushes. “I offered him a job as a bartender. He um. He’s still thinking about it,” he mumbles. It’s only now as he says it in front of Yennefer that he realizes how it might sound.

“Excuse me, you did what?” Yen says, sitting forward. “You… slept with my husband, and  _ then _ offered him a job? Do you know how insanely unethical that is?” She feels a rush of exasperation. Trust Geralt to end up neck deep in some kind of lunacy the second his life got turned upside down. He could have come home to his family, but no, that would have been too easy. 

She studies Jaskier again, watching how he deflates visibly under her gaze. Jaskier being in control of Geralt’s food, shelter, and income sounded like a recipe for disaster, but the more that she had watched Jaskier, the less she worried he had done any of it as a conscious manipulation. He came across as a genuinely sweet person, a kind heart with no brain whatsoever attached to it. 

“I hadn’t thought about it too deeply, if I’m going to be perfectly honest,” Jaskier says through his fingers to the floor. 

She can see by the tips of his ears that he is deep red with embarrassment. _There_ _it is,_ she thinks, exasperation deepening into a long-suffering chagrin. While Geralt himself was quite stable if left to his own devices, he had a tendency to let other people get him involved in more chaos than he was prepared to handle.

“I… He. I think I get a little stupid around him. Um. I’m really sorry.” Jaskier mumbles, internally kicking himself. Now that she’d said it he could see it, but he honestly hadn’t even thought about the ethics of the offer. He’d just seen a nice thing he could do for someone who could use a leg up and gone for it. While he’d never abuse the power he had over his employees, he could see why Yennefer was upset with him.

“Clearly,” she says wryly, leaning back into her chair and sizing him up. Turning the story back and forth in her mind, she examines him minutely. 

“Well, you don’t seem very bright, but I don’t think you’re a predator.” She says, tilting her head and regarding him with sharp curiosity. If he really was just a kind idiot, then he might be around in her life for a while longer. Geralt had always needed someone, and she’d known from day one that the kind of love they had wasn’t going to be enough for him. “We’re going to have to talk later, you and I.” She glances briefly over her shoulder at Geralt’s exam room door. “I’m going to be taking Geralt back to my hotel room tonight. And tomorrow? You and I are going to sort some things out.” 

Jaskier nods, stomach rolling as he glances up at her. What did she mean, sort things out? That didn’t sound hopeful. Most likely, it meant that they’d be coming to take Geralt’s things and he’d never see him again. The idea makes his heart ache, and he wraps his arms around himself uncomfortably. He didn’t want it to be over yet. 

She looks coolly at him. He looks miserable, and as far as she is concerned, he deserves it. He might have been trying to be kind to Geralt, but what he’d actually done was set her husband up for a lot of potential heartbreak and she wanted him to stew on that a little bit. There would be time later to set him at his ease, but for now, she felt fairly pleased by how the whole conversation had gone. As she hears Geralt quietly approach, she stands. Geralt comes to a halt when he sees both of them looking at him, and he gives them a deeply worried look. 

“ _ Kochany. _ ” Yennefer greets, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder warmly. “I’ve met your idiot now.”

“Yen…” Geralt groans, mortified. “His name is Jaskier.”

“No, it isn’t, but we’ll waive that point,” she says with the slightest lilt of amusement. “How is your hand?” Geralt lifts it and flexes it gingerly, showing them both that the splint is off. 

“Should be fine if I don’t punch anything else,” he rumbles uneasily, still eyeing the two of them. “Take a few more weeks to heal the rest of the way but the splint is off.” 

“Well then!” Yennefer says brightly. “Don’t punch anything else, or you might not be able to take your idiot up on his  _ job _ offer.” Geralt rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling as if he is praying for strength, and she gives his arm a little squeeze. 

“Jaskier.” She says, turning her gaze back to him, curled around himself near the fishtank. “’I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.” Gently but firmly, she takes Geralt by the elbow and gives him a light nudge. Geralt puffs uncomfortably, looking torn as he gazes down at her then over at his lover, who is still beet red. 

“Jaskier-” he starts, but Jaskier cuts him off by raising a hand. 

“Not now, Geralt,” he sighs. “Just. I’ll talk to you soon. I need to go home right now. Have a good day with your wife.” He drops his head back into his hands and scrubs at his face one last time, trying to gather himself. Geralt gives Yen a frustrated look. She smiles back at him, unphased. Geralt might be free to choose his lovers, but as far as she was concerned, she was equally free to harass them a little on the first meeting. As a treat. 

Geralt hesitates. As much as he wants to reconnect with Yen, he doesn’t want to leave Jaskier alone like this. He is angry with Yen for embarrassing his very nice if somewhat thoughtless lover so thoroughly, but he can see by the look on Jaskier’s face that now is not the time to deal with it. “I’m sorry... “ he says quietly, fiddling with the folder he is holding. “Um. Tomorrow, right.”

“Right then. See you tomorrow.” she says pleasantly, then turns and gently walks with Geralt out of the waiting room. Geralt shoots one last shameful look over his shoulder at Jaskier hunched in the corner, before allowing himself to be guided out of the door by a soft hand at his elbow. 

_ They made their way up a dirty, crowded street. In the distance was someone singing on a corner, and nearer, a bustling market swarmed with people dressed for the desert heat. Yennefer weaved her way through the crowd with a determined look on her face, holding her bag strap firmly against her shoulder. Beside her was her companion. He was a big, lithe man with a dark beard which concealed terrible pockmarked scarring. He was wearing fatigues, and over his shoulder he carried a large black bag. Right behind them was Geralt, also dressed in fatigues. His serious golden eyes scanned the street continually, his posture stiff and alert.  _

_ As they entered the market, the bustle and roar of the people closed over them. Geralt moved closer to Yennefer, getting up near her side and body blocking a man who got too close as they weaved among the stalls. She glanced briefly up at Geralt, lips thinning, then ducked into an alleyway off of the main thoroughfare. It was quieter here, and there were a few children playing some sort of ball game nearby. Stopping in front of a wooden door in the clay face of the building before them, she adjusted the bag on her shoulder and neatened her head scarf before rapping on it.  _

_ The door opened, and she stepped down into the little room, flashing a brilliant smile and greeting a tired-looking older man. He gestured them inside, but hesitated when he saw Geralt. Geralt eyed him back seriously, then looked around the little room, scanning for danger and seeing none. Yennefer lifted her head.  _

_ <<He doesn’t have to be in here, but my camera man stays,>> she said, already pulling her notepad out of her bag. She jerked her chin at the door and Geralt nodded. His gaze returned to the older man and he eyed him fiercely for a moment, then stepped back into the doorway and assumed a guarding position. The older man hesitated again, then nodded, conceding the arrangement, and retreated into the relative cool of the dark clay room. _

_ As Yennefer’s companion arranged his equipment, Geralt settled into a watchful silence in the doorway. The main part of his attention was on the room around Yennefer, scanning for dangerous interruptions. The other part was on the street, carefully tracking the sounds of the people bustling at the head of the alley and the children scrapping over the ball.  _

_ As the interview was wrapping up, Geralt’s head suddenly snapped up as the ball flew past him out towards the head of the alley. A young boy followed it at breakneck pace, laughing so hard it sounded like he was about to be sick. He careened into the crowd, retrieved the ball deftly, and heaved it back into the alley. Geralt ducked out of the way as the ball whistled past him, meeting the little boy’s sudden look of worry with a genial wink. The boy flashed a smile and zipped back the other way, returning to the seething pack of children at the back of the alley. _

_ A moment later, as Yennefer and her companion were exiting the building, the ball flew past once more. The same child shot after it, ducking and weaving amongst the crowd as he attempted to retrieve it. He lost his balance, bounced off of one man, and landed at the feet of another, who kicked him absentmindedly out of the way.  _

_ The child cried out in pain, twisting in the middle of the street, landing himself under yet another man’s feet as he attempted to dodge away from the blow. This man stepped back from the child as if his ankles had been burned, and he shouted at the child, berating him. Geralt stiffened, eyes narrowing. The older man who Yennefer had interviewed closed the door behind her and her companion firmly, leaving them in an uncertain knot in the alley. _

_ Out in the street, the man had begun kicking the child, shouting imprecations and curses as his foot struck over and over again. As he reached down to grab the little boy’s hair and pull him up, Geralt broke from his position and dodged forward into the street. _

_ “Hey!” He shouted, his deep voice startling against the backdrop of relative quiet in the alley. <<Stop!>> The man ignored him, tightening his grip viciously in the boy’s hair and beginning to beat him about the head and shoulders with the flat of his hand. The boy began to scream in terror and pain, kicking and struggling, tears leaking from his eyes. Geralt closed in rapidly, looming over the smaller and much older man gripping the boy’s head. In the background, Yennefer and her companion tensed, but as she made to follow Geralt into the street, her companion blocked her and shook his head.  _

_ <<Hey! Asshole!>> Geralt snapped, eyes flashing. The other man’s grey head came up and he met Geralt’s gaze, eyes dark with anger, tightening his grip on the boy’s hair.  _

_ <<Hey asshole yourself!>> he snarled, shaking the sobbing child. <<This little shit has been getting underfoot for weeks. This is none of your business! Back off!>> _

_ <<Touch him again and I’ll make it my business, you motherfucking son of a bitch!>> Geralt barked, leaning in closer. The grey-haired man’s beard wobbled as he puffed and glared at Geralt, but he was also slowly beginning to shrink back in on himself as Geralt squared up on him, a look of mounting fury in his golden eyes. Geralt stepped into his body space, carefully maneuvering himself so that, as the man’s hand began to loosen, he was putting himself between him and the weeping child still squirming to get away.  _

_ As Geralt closed the distance between them, the boy finally twisted loose. Geralt immediately swept him up behind his back, now firmly between him and the angry, sputtering man.  _

_ <<Fuck off!>> Geralt snarled, holding the boy’s head against his leg as little hands fisted his fatigues, feeling him tremble like a little bird. The other man stepped back, startled by the heat in Geralt’s voice.  _

_ <<I… you... !>> he sputtered back at Geralt, at a loss for words. Geralt bared his teeth and made as if to lunge towards the man, and the man jumped back.  _

_ <<Fuck you!>> he cried, finally backing away. Then he turned his venomous gaze to the little boy. <<If I ever catch you around here ag->> _

_ <<One more goddamn word and I”ll kick your motherfucking ass!>> Geralt roared back, cutting him off. <<If you fucking touch him another goddamn time you’re going to have one hell of a headache, motherfucker, just try me!>> The little boy shrank against his leg, frightened by the shouting, and Geralt tightened the pressure of his hand on him just slightly, trying to reassure him.  _

_ The man gave one more angry sputter, shook his finger at Geralt, then backed away into the crowd, tossing his hands into the air in a final gesture of displeasure as he went. Around them, the market bustled on, mostly uninterrupted by the shouting match. Aside from giving the little scene enough berth to stay out of range, the passersby seem to be carefully ignoring the whole incident.  _

_ As he watched the man vanish into the crowd, Geralt’s body hummed with angry tension. He didn’t relax until he saw the grey head vanish around a corner. When he was sure that he was gone, he turned his attention to the rest of the street, scanning it until he was reassured that the passerby were not a threat. Then and only then did he turn his full attention to the child clinging to his leg.  _

_ Gently, gently, as softly as if he was handling a little bird, he pried the child’s fingers off of the leg of his fatigues. Then he led him into a safe place near the mouth of the alley and knelt down, making himself small. His eyes softened as he knelt, and he made reassuring noises as he looked the child over, inspecting him for serious injury. The child was scraped and bruised, streaked with tears and trembling as he gulped back little sobs, but he was otherwise unharmed.  _

_ Nearby in the alleyway, Yennefer watched curiously as Geralt began to chat quietly with the young child, who couldn’t have been more than six. He was easy with the little one in a way she rarely saw people be with children. He was more relaxed with the child than she'd ever seen him be with any adult, either. His face was calm and kind, and lit up with delight a moment later as the boy said something that made him laugh.  _

_ She’d never seen him look this soft before, his manner totally transformed by his proximity to the child. She nibbled the inside of her lip speculatively, re-evaluating her opinion of the lieutenant yet again. He might come across as stupid, stiff, and arrogant, but there were clearly hidden depths she hadn’t given him credit for. She turned to her companion. _

_ “What do you think, Coën?” She asked, leaning against the side of the building.  _

_ “I think you should ask him out for a drink, Yenna.” Coën replied with a big grin, teasing. “He’s good company. You’d be surprised.” _

_ “Oh, what, you get drunk with the idiot once and now you’re bonded?” _

_ “Yup. That’s how it works,” Coën’s green eyes were merry as he eyed his partner, who had her arms crossed doubtfully. “He’s a funny little fucker.”  _

_ “I somehow doubt that,” Yennefer said, but she turned her thoughtful gaze back to Geralt. By now he had retrieved the child’s ball from the market stall where it had finally come to rest and was handing it back to him, along with a little piece of fruit he’d purchased from the stall’s owner.  _

_ “Your loss,” Coën said with a shrug, adjusting the big bag on his shoulder. He raised his camera and took a few discreet shots of Geralt and the child, smiling to himself. Then, he cocked his head at her. _

_ “Ready to head back?” She nodded, eyes still on Geralt’s back. Falling into step, they slowly approach the mouth of the alleyway. The child scrambled off with the ball as they approached, his cheeks bulging with fruit, and Geralt straightened back to his full height. Coën clapped him on the shoulder genially, smiling, and Geralt gave a soft, awkward smile in return. Together, they all turned to the market and merged into the crowd, heading back the way they came. _

Geralt is curled along the length of her black-clad leg, face pressed into her hip as she idly strokes his short hair. His breathing is finally easing back into a slow, steady cadence as he rests his head on her. She is leaning back against the headboard of a hotel bed, pillows arranged comfortably under her back, a glass tumbler of brandy in her other hand. Her own heart is beginning to slow, and the alcohol helps soothe the ragged edges of frustration and sadness that she is feeling.

The air conditioning unit rattles and hums in the corner, keeping the crisp looking hotel room cool even in the soggy summer heat. It’s a small blessing in an otherwise raw and painful day. The sunlight peeking through the curtains has mellowed, taking on the penetrating gold of an early summer evening. They've been there for hours, trying to talk and getting nowhere, and now they are in another lull. Her fingers run firmly along the backs of his ears, along his neck, over his forehead, slowly but surely soothing away some of his stress. It’s good to have him back, but it frightens her deeply that he is being so reticent. She’s used to him being taciturn, but this is a whole new level of lock-out. 

For his part, he hates how she has been needling him to talk about what happened to him. The things she has been asking him to divulge are so painful that they feel like they burn to touch, sear when he tries to speak, so he’s been fighting to escape her attempts to dig at them. But on some level, he knows she’s right to pry. She has a right to know. He is finally accustoming himself to the idea that he can’t run from her or this conversation any longer. 

Taking a sip from her tumbler, she says, “Are you ready to talk now?” Against her leg, he nods, reaching up to tangle his fingers delicately amongst the soft curls spilling over her shoulder. He rubs them between his fingers, watching them spring back as he releases them. The feeling of them running through his hand is like coming home. 

She may be many things, but most importantly, she has always been his safe harbor and closest ally. Always steadily at his back in a world where few people have cared for him. He is still angry about how sad and frazzled Jaskier looked, and he finds himself missing the sweetness of the other man’s presence. But despite that, he suspects that he is right where he should be. Now that he can’t run anymore, despite his shame and fear, he finds that he is deeply grateful to sink into her love. 

“All right,  _ kochany. _ ” Her finger rubs up the back of his ear, running along the delicate shell of it firmly, just so. His eyelashes flutter against his cheeks as he heaves a deep sigh. For the first time since he was arrested the feeling of being in free-fall is easing, and he is reluctant to break the peace of it. He knows that he has to, though. Steeling himself against the ugliness of his feelings, he clears his throat.

“What do you want to know?” he murmurs into her hip reluctantly. She smiles down at him, eyes sad and soft. 

“What do you think I want to know,  _ moj drogì _ ?" She rejoins gently, pressing her hand against the side of his head, holding him close. Words are hard for him, she knows, but if there was ever a time to pry it is now. She takes another sip of brandy and eyes him, her expression kind. He turns and buries his face in her leg.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You promised.”

He heaves a heavy sigh into the soft, exquisitely tailored leg of her pants and nods. “I did,” he admits unhappily. 

“It worries me that you won’t even tell me who it was,  _ mój drogi. _ You didn’t get a dishonorable discharge all by yourself. I asked some rather pointed questions when the Army couldn't tell me where you were.” She tilts her head, more curls spilling over her shoulder which he reaches for. The corner of her lip curves up in a melancholy smile as she watches him play with them. Her anger had been spent some hours ago, and now she is able to be patient, holding a gentle space for her husband to find his words. After almost twenty-two years of knowing him, she knows they are slow to come when he speaks on difficult feelings, if indeed they come at all. 

“It wasn’t his fault,” Geralt repeats quietly, burning with shame. “I should have stopped him.”

“You’ve said already. I’ll ask you again. Whoever this mystery idiot was, did he start it?” 

Geralt groans. “That’s not the point. The point is, I knew better and I shouldn’t-”

“Stop. We’ve been around this circle all afternoon. I have the time, I’m not letting you go until you tell me the rest,  _ kochany. _ ” 

He sinks back into silence. Anyone else might think he was sulking, but Yennefer knows that he is struggling uphill inside, trying to force words through a mouth that just does not want to move. She swirls her fingers along his scalp again, white hairs tickling under her fingertips. He leans into the good feeling, using it to help bring him back to himself. Inside of him the untold story burns like hot lead in his chest and throat, searing away at his insides. 

Eventually he says, “We had just gotten out of the field.”

“The field? Since when have you been getting out of the office?”

“I hate the office.”

“I know, but that’s not the point. The point is, you trapped yourself into one by being too competent to avoid that damn promotion,” she teases gently, finally getting a pained little smile out of him. 

“True. But…” he shrugs uncomfortably. “I guess that’s why they sent me back out into the field. I’m good at my job. Uh. Was good.” He frowns, turning his face into her leg, feeling a rush of guilt and anger. 

“It’s ok,  _ kochany.  _ I know. So, what. You went out into the field, got shot at…?”

He nods, turning up to see her. He drops his hand to rest on her stomach, idly beginning to play with the white silk of her shirt. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “Almost died.  _ He _ almost died. We… it was stupid. We got back to base and it…” he heaves a sigh. “I don’t know. I felt so numb that I just wanted to feel  _ something. _ And he always pushes, and I just… let him. This time I just let him.” Even talking about it burns. He feels like the air is slowly being eaten out of his lungs as he speaks, and his fingers tighten on her shirt as if it could somehow protect him.

Her lips thin, and she nods. “There’s only one person I know who you talk about like that,  _ kochany. _ Was it…”

“Eskel,” he mumbles into her hip, nodding. “Yes. It was Eskel.”

“That barmy prick,” she says, her quiet voice full of an old anger. “I told you if you kept on with him something like this was going to happen.” Her face is carefully neutral, but he knows if he looks up, he will be able to see the angry flash in her eyes. 

“I know, Yen,” he mumbles into her leg, feeling a hot rush of embarrassment twist his already aching heart. “It was stupid. It's always been stupid, but I just… I needed to feel something. It's always been like that with him." Shame creeps up after the embarrassment, an old and constant companion. He rubs his thumb on the button of her shirt, focusing intently on it, trying to stay present. 

“Bet you felt something when you were being court martialed, idiot,” she points out, irritation sharpening her voice. He flinches, but nods, the shame deepening into a hot, quiet pain. She presses her lips together as she sees the expression which crosses his face, fingernail tapping on her glass. She takes another sip, then smoothes her hand out across his hair again. 

“I’m sorry,  _ kochany _ . I’m angry. I shouldn’t have said it quite like that,” she apologizes, realizing that humiliating him isn’t going to help him talk to her right now. Her own stomach twists with guilt as she gazes down at him. Normally he doesn’t mind her sharp tongue, but she’s known him long enough to know that there’s a time and a place, and this just isn’t it. He grumbles something indistinct into her leg, but by the cadence of it, she can tell it isn’t meant to be heard. 

“So at least now I know who to bury,” she says mildly, a little smile playing about her lips. “What happened then? You must have been very ashamed.” He nods, tentatively reaching up for her curls again, seeking an anchor. She tips her head, allowing him easy access to them. While he gathers his voice he fingers them softly, reveling in the soft texture and sweet smell of lilac and gooseberry. The sensations help orient him as he navigates the storm of feelings that he is experiencing, groping for the words to explain something unspeakably painful.

“I just… I knew I couldn’t come home,” he explains, his voice rough with misery. “They dumped me at Fort Morhen with that fucking truck and whatever I could fit into my backpack. The rest of my shit got shipped back to England.” She can see the tip of one of his ears from where she is sitting, and she runs her finger gently over it, trying to soothe away some of his shame. 

“I know,  _ kochany. _ I almost had a heart attack when it showed up on our doorstep. Why did you think you couldn’t come home? You know I’ll always take you no matter what. You’re safe with us.”

He shakes his head vehemently, face closing up. He pulls away from her abruptly and sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and putting his back to her. She eyes his back, then, without comment, stands and walks around to the little counter near the mini fridge. This is an old dance, and she has the time to do the steps today. She can see he needs a moment, so she finds a way to give him one. Quietly, she pours him his own glass of brandy and brings it back to him, pressing it into his hands without forcing eye contact. When he takes it, she strokes his shoulder lightly before returning to her nest of pillows.

He turns the glass tumbler back and forth in his hands, watching the light play through the dark amber liquid. The questions make him feel an irrational surge of anger, and he allows himself to quietly seethe for a moment. Then, as quickly as it came, the anger fades, washing back to leave a deepening shame in its place. He takes a huge swallow of the brandy, shakes his head, and says, “I’ve never been any good for you three. At least I used to be stable. But I couldn’t bring myself home just to be a wreck. It wouldn’t be fair.” he shrugs. “Besides, the way I was discharged? Cirilla doesn’t need to know I’m…” He trails off into choking silence, his throat closing, and he shrugs painfully.

Yennefer’s heart sinks. This isn’t the first time she’s heard Geralt talk like this, and she has a good guess about what the end of that choked off sentence was. “Oh, love. Are you worried about what she’ll think if she finds out that you’re gay?” Yennefer asks gently. If she hasn’t missed her guess she knows the answer, but she presses him anyway, trying to get him to finally talk about it. He’s spent years refusing to fully engage, and she is secretly hoping that at least now he will begin to process his feelings about himself. That way at least something good could come out of this awful mess.

He shrugs angrily, glaring at his brandy. “I don’t want to talk about that, Yen.”

“You brought it up-”

“Stop!” He barks, glaring over his shoulder at her. She stares back at him coolly, not about to be deterred this time. 

“You can say the word ‘gay,’ Geralt.” She presses on, holding his gaze. “There’s no one here but me _ ,  _ and I’ve known for a  _ long _ time. The least you can do is be honest with yourself. Or if not yourself, with me. We’ve been through hell together, we have a daughter together… It’s about time we talked about it for real.” 

Geralt scowls at her stiffly, his expression getting flatter by the second. “Don’t make me talk about this.” He says, turning away from her and squaring his shoulders against any further intrusions on the subject. Exasperated, Yennefer rolls her eyes, then presses her drink glass between her hands, using the cool heaviness of it to keep her calm. 

“Oh for the love of- Geralt.  _ Kochany. _ I was there helping you find call boys to bang! Who are you trying to fool, here?" She nudges him lightly with her foot, determined to press. "Have you fucked any women since me?”

“Have you fucked any men?" He growls back, cutting her another sharp look over his shoulder.

"No, but I haven't fucked much of anyone since you. You know that. You're avoiding the question."

He shrugs, mutely. His shameful silence is answer enough. 

“Twelve years without a woman, Geralt…” She heaves a heavy sigh, then swallows back the last of her own brandy before continuing. “If there’s one blessing to come out of this bloody mess, it’s that you have no career to protect any more. The cat is out of the bag. You can at least say it in private, with the person who knows you best.” She nudges his back gently again with her bare foot. “Besides, who do you take me for? You think I raised our daughter to hate people like you? Do you really think I would do that?”

As his shoulders slowly droop, she sets her glass aside and comes to sit behind him, wrapping her arms around his thick waist and pressing her cheek to his back. “I’ve never been ashamed of you,  _ mój drogi. _ The way you are has never been wrong to me. And I’ve never regretted the life we’ve shared.” She kisses softly at the back of his neck, her breath tickling his hair. “You are better than you give yourself credit for.”

His already stiff body tenses further and he idly pulls away from her, but doesn’t fight it when she keeps her arms wrapped around him. Her gentle words make his heart plunge, and he shakes his head. The love feels so good, but so misplaced, and he can barely stand to experience it. It feels like it doesn’t belong to him. Every fiber of his being wants to push it away, to keep his family from all of the ugliness boiling inside of him.

“Yen… stop. I’m not a good father. All I do is hurt Ciri. I can’t make her happy… Besides… She shouldn’t have to have a father she can’t talk about in public.” He pauses, the muscles in his jaw working as he gropes painfully for his next words. “And… She has you, and she has Coën. Fuck, Yen! He's been a better father to her than I could ever fucking be. He’s been there with you raising her, not me. Just tell her I fucking died. It would be better.” The words spill out of him like hot acid, leaving him feeling like he’s vomited fire in their wake. He’s heard them repeated in his own head so many times, but they feel new and awful all over again as he feels her stiffen behind him. 

“ _ Geralt! _ ” Yennefer snaps, shocked. She can feel her heart beginning to race with fear as she realizes exactly how deeply his poor self esteem has plunged since they last spoke in person. “You take that back right now! Our child is very proud of you, and rightly so!” Gently, she gives him a little shake, trying to rattle some love into his stiff body. 

“Besides, I would never,  _ ever _ lie to her like that. I know you’ve struggled with her,  _ kochany. _ But you’ve never given yourself the time to learn what Ciri needs from you.” She squeezes him, pressing her hands across his heart, seeking to ease even a little of his pain. “She doesn’t need you dead, Geralt. She needs you to give yourself a chance to try.” She nuzzles into the back of his shoulder, keeping him ferociously close.

“Besides,” she murmurs quietly against the back of his ear with a wry smile, “Coën would kill you if you died. You promised you would step up when you retired,  _ kochany.  _ You know he’s going to hold you to that.” 

He grumbles quietly, heart feeling like it is burnt to ashes, but he allows her to begin to rock him. Sensing the enormous pain he’s in, she seeks to soothe it by easing him into his natural rhythm. She feels the sudden release of tension when she hits the right cadence and his own motion takes over. They sway softly together, there on the edge of the hotel bed, Yennefer's cheek pressed to his shoulder where she can hear the beat of his heart. The rocking motion is as much part of him as his breath, and she has learned long ago to help him find it in times of deep distress. 

After a while he slows, then stills. His body is relaxed now, breathing and heart rate steady and slow. The pain is still gnawing the inside of him to pieces, but he feels more himself than he has in weeks. He sets his glass aside on the bedside table and brings his hands up to cover hers, cradling them against his chest, grateful for the care she is taking. His throat burns hotter as he sits with her cool hands cradling him, his eyes beginning to water as he tries to process the sheer amount of agony he’d been hiding from himself. She feels a wet drop on her hand and her head comes up, eyes widening. Then she squeezes him mutely closer, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. 

“I don’t know how to do any of this, Yen. I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t call you because I didn’t know what to do,” he says thickly. “I’m just… I shouldn’t be here. There’s nowhere I fit, and I don’t want to drag you three down with me,  _ neshama shelì. _ You deserve better than that.”

Her heart twists inside of her as she listens to him, her hold around him becoming fierce. Her small frame is wiry, containing considerable strength, and she uses all of it to crush him against her. She brings her head up and brushes her lips against the soft skin behind his ear, loving him, wanting to be certain that he hears her.

“You belong right here, Geralt Rivii,” she murmurs ferociously. “I’m never going to let you forget that, no matter how hard you try.” Her heart hammers and she feels nauseous. She knew he was depressed, but this is a whole new level that she’s never seen him sink to before, and she is deeply worried about his safety. 

He shakes his head, wetness dripping down his cheeks. His burning throat squeezes shut and he can’t get any more words out, so he just leans into the ferocity of her embrace without speaking. Her head whirls as she presses herself against him, searching for the right words to say. Geralt has been a constant in her life for over two decades, and the idea that she might lose him to this is unbearable. She begins to rock him again, and this time he moves with her almost right away, his body taut with misery as they sway. 

As he stills again some time later, her delicate fingers come up to wipe the tears from his face and smooth his cheeks, stroke his hair, worried. She covers him with affection and he leans into her hands needfully, soaking up the gentleness like a sponge. 

After a long silence in which her hands work to soothe him, her mind churning, she comes to a conclusion. Geralt’s depression is something she feels out of her depth to deal with all in one go. She will have to circle back around to it after more thought, so she changes the subject. 

“Tell me about Jaskier,  _ kochany. _ ” She prompts, smiling into his shoulder as he gulps and gives a soft painful chuckle, lowering his face into his hands. 

“Oh, I don’t even know where the fuck to start with him,” he says damply into his fingers, wiping the remaining tears from his face. His stomach flips to even talk about Jaskier, to hear his name on her lips. Shame and gnawing fear and deep desire all tangle together as he remembers blue eyes and soft hands and kindness. “I’m so fucking confused,  _ neshama shelì.  _ I’ve never met anyone like him before.” 

She laughs at this, leaning back as he shifts to lean back against the headboard of the bed, stealing some pillows from her nest. Graciously choosing not to mention anything, she brings the rest of them along, arranging them so that she is supported while she lies along his side and places her head over his heart. He wraps his arms around her lightly and brings one hand up to start stroking her hair again, delicately working a tangle out when it snares around his finger. He is obscurely relieved to change the subject, but he isn’t honestly sure that he likes this one much better. 

“So tell me how you met, that’s a good place to start. He mentioned that you were dazed when he first met you, what happened?” Yennefer prompts. She has concerns about Jaskier’s grasp of boundaries, but at the same time she can see that Geralt is very fond of him. She hopes talking about him will help lift his mood. 

Geralt grimaces, then shrugs and nods, deciding to be forthcoming for once in his life. “I was… upset when I left the base. And that damn truck overheats in the summer, so I had to run the heater at full blast to try and keep it from shutting down on the middle of the highway.” His big hand runs over her head, and he presses his nose into her hair softly. He takes a deep inhale, eyes fluttering closed as he sinks into the peace of the smell. After a moment, he continues, his deep voice rumbling under her ear.

“The highway was a parking lot all the way from the base to the city. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the uh… Pride march thing had blocked traffic for fucking miles. It must have been over a hundred in the direct sun, and I didn’t have enough water. By the time I got off the fucking highway, I’d been out there for more than two hours and I was starting to get heat exhaustion.” He presses a kiss to the top of her head, thinking back on the day, a little furrow appearing between his brows. 

“I was… It was too much, I got overwhelmed. I was feeling too fucking much. So when the truck broke down, I just… I lost my shit. Beat the fuck out of the tree I parked next to, fucked up my hand. I was so fucking angry.” 

“I know you know better than to punch trees when you’re mad, Geralt.” Yennefer points out, drawing a soft circle on his chest around the buttons of his white shirt. “Were you having a meltdown?”

Hearing this, Geralt’s face goes blank and hard. He cuts Yen an angry look. “No.” He replies flatly. “I just lost my shit.” Yennefer had a nasty habit of trying to draw parallels between him and his daughter’s difficulties, and he wasn’t having any of it. 

Internally, Yen finds herself biting her tongue. This was another thing he didn’t like talking about, and now wasn’t the time to argue with him about it. She heaves a quiet sigh, for once letting it go by. “So what happened next?”

He eyes her for a long moment, making sure that she’s not going to argue with him before he continues. Then he relaxes minutely, deciding to continue telling his story. “I stumbled into the Pride parade,” he reluctantly reveals, uncomfortable. “And had a fucking episode. Totally blanked out.”

“Again? That seems to be happening to you way too often,  _ kochany. _ Last time we spoke on the phone you said you’d had more than the month previous. It’s getting worse.” She frowns, adding that to her list of worries. Geralt had been showing signs of worsening PTSD for years, and it had moved from a background concern to a full-blown worry for her in the last few months. 

“Hmm. Yeah…” he heaves a heavy sigh, frowning. Beneath her, he shifts side to side uneasily for a moment before re-settling. “I lost track of my feet… when I looked up, I was a long way from where I had been, and my hand hurt…” he shifts slightly to get more comfortable, feeling a rill of nerves as he recalls seeing Jaskier for the first time. It was rare for him to share things like this with Yennefer. It felt weirdly naked. He swallows hard. “Jaskier was there. He was kind.” His voice trails off as he feels his chest tighten, making it hard to speak. 

Yennefer smiles, taking in the way that Geralt’s face is already softening as he remembers Jaskier. This is a side of him she rarely sees. “He told me you let him bandage your hand,  _ kochany. _ You barely even let  _ me _ touch you when you’re hurt. You must have really liked him,” she teases gently, trying to keep him talking. To her delight, a bashful smile flits across Geralt’s face, there and gone again in a heartbeat. 

“I… did. Yeah.” He replies awkwardly, avoiding her eyes. She doesn’t press, letting him find his way through. She is rewarded a moment later as he continues. 

“He’s really… Hmm. I didn’t know what to do with it.” Shaking his head, he fidgets her hair uncomfortably.

“Really what?” She nudges him. “Hot? Beautiful? Terrifying? What are you trying to tell me?”

Geralt tilts his head to give her a frustrated look, but she smiles back at him and he relaxes a little bit. This is an old habit of hers, trying to get him to be more forthcoming, more specific. Embarrassed, he squirms. 

“He’s really beautiful, Yen,” he admits, very quietly. A bemused look comes over him, the expression out of place on his usually stoic face. She laughs, cupping his cheek and running her thumb over it. 

“I love how you look when you say that,  _ mój drogi. _ ” Yennefer sighs, feeling bittersweet. “I don’t know if you’ve ever looked that way before, talking about someone. It’s good.” And it is. Geralt has never allowed himself much in the way of happiness, and she likes how it looks on him, regardless of how it came to him.

Geralt grimaces, embarrassed, pulling his face away from her hand. She lets it drop back to his chest, where he holds it softly against his breastbone, needing the warmth of her close. The touch on his face was too much, but her hand near his heart feels about right. 

Seeing how uncomfortable he is, she lets the subject drop. “And then… what? Lunch?” She’s rewarded with another faint flicker of half-smile. 

“Yeah. Good food, too.” 

She gives him a soft look, squeezing his hand very gently. “Then a nap?”

Grumbling softly as his embarrassment deepens further, Geralt nods. Yen waits, and he eventually realizes she expects him to keep talking. Reluctantly, he continues. “I slept for a while. I woke up at night and he…” Geralt shrugs and heaves a quiet sigh, “came in very upset not long after.”

“You didn’t like seeing him that way, did you?” Yen asks gently, studying Geralt’s face as she questions him, privately fascinated. It feels odd to see him open up. Unexpected, but good.

“No,” he admits, fidgeting with her fingers as he cradles her hand against his chest. Groping for words, he feels like his throat is closing up on him again. 

Yennefer knows him well enough to expect this and slightly changes the subject again, hoping to keep drawing him out. “How did you like being behind a bar for real? I remember back in Tel Aviv you used to talk David into letting you back behind the counter after hours to see what he did and where he put everything… I swear I don’t know how he used to put up with you bothering him so much.” 

Geralt laughs, the expression throwing light across his drawn features. “He appreciated having someone to talk to who didn’t want to argue about the football match, Yen. I wasn’t bothering him.” 

She chuckles, shaking her head. “I find that hard to believe. You were like a little child getting to see a fire engine last time I saw you back there with him. It was very sweet,” she smiles, her eyes twinkling with a tease, “But it personally would have driven me bloody well insane. I would have thrown you out.”

“Lucky for me he wasn’t you, then,” Geralt says, nudging her gently with his elbow, causing her to smile again. She nudges him back in the ribs, pleased to see him warming up and relaxing.

“So. Real night behind the bar. I heard you even made tips, hmm?”

“I did,” he admits, his face clearing, looking younger than she’s seen him look in years. “I… it was fun, Yen. It was challenging. I don’t think I got a thought in edgewise the entire night because I had to hustle so hard.” He tips his head back against the headboard, studying the swirls in the plaster of the hotel ceiling. “I loved it.”

She relaxes against him, enjoying his happiness. “I thought you might have.” He looks down at her and smiles, and she squeezes his hand. She lets the conversation rest for a moment, letting the warmth of the exchange sink deep into both of them. It’s a rare treat to see Geralt smiling about something like this, and she wants to savor it. 

Eventually, he lifts his hand to begin playing with her curls again. She sighs comfortably and shifts against the pillows, loving the gentle touch. Their eyes drift closed, and he hums softly in contentment as the silky ringlets slide between his fingers. After a while, she cracks open an eye. 

“I’m glad it went well,  _ mój drogi. _ You’ve always wanted to do that.”

“It’s stupid,” he replies, suddenly uncomfortable. “But yes. I did.”

She sighs, frustrated. “It’s not a stupid thing to enjoy, Geralt. You’re allowed to have fun,  _ kochany. _ Don’t let ghosts take away your joy.” 

He grimaces, but nods, conceding the point. It’s an old argument, and he is too emotionally exhausted to fight over something he knows he probably shouldn’t even be defending. The ugly words inside of him from years of pain are always there, ready to be spoken again and again. Yennefer has never had the patience for them, though, pushing back when he spoke ill of himself or the things he loved.

She chews the inside of her lip lightly, wondering how to approach the next part of the conversation. She knows she needs to be delicate, because she doesn’t want to shut him down. Cautiously, she says, “You must have been tired by the time you were done.”

He eyes her, reluctant to be drawn into conversation about Jaskier, worried that she will say something unkind about him. She eyes him back, feeling a little guilty as she sees his worry. Sitting up, she pats his chest. “I’m going to get a refill. Would you like some?” She grabs her glass and rolls off of the bed. When she turns to look at him, he extends his empty glass to her and she takes it without further comment. 

She walks to the counter and sets the glasses down, filling them each with a generous measure of brandy. When she returns his glass to him, his face is closed, and he pulls the glass in close against his chest. Sitting on the end of the bed near his feet, she cocks her head and looks him over. He looks haggard and uncertain, wrung out by the last few weeks of his life. 

She reconsiders her approach, and ventures, “Are you worried about what I’ll say if you talk about going home with him?”

Startled, his eyes come up to meet hers, and he reluctantly nods.

Taking a sip of her brandy, she rolls it over her tongue as she considers this. “ _ Kochany… _ We need to talk about this.” She holds up her hand as he goes to speak, a gentle but firm gesture. “So for once, I’ll try and hold off on telling you what’s on my mind. I just want you to tell me what’s going on.”

He huffs a quiet laugh and brings the glass to his mouth, taking a swallow. “You must really be worried if you’re willing to bite your tongue, Yen.” 

She laughs at that, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know if worried is the right word, but yes. I think it’s very important that you feel safe to speak right now, so I am going to be very careful with the words I choose. Ok?”

He shifts uncomfortably, rubbing his shoulder against the headboard as if to scratch an itch, but when he settles, he nods. “Ok,” he says, muffled by the tumbler as he takes another sip. They sink into an uncomfortable silence together, wreathed in the scent of brandy and exhausted stress. She watches him out of the corner of her eye, noticing that his body language closes down and becomes more stiff and unreadable as the minutes tick by. It has been a long day, and they are both worn out.

As she gets to the bottom of her tumbler and tosses back the last of her brandy, she comes to a conclusion. Reaching out slowly so as not to startle him, she grabs Geralt’s ankle and gives it a gentle squeeze. “You know what? I’m hungry. I’m going to order us some dinner.” His face is shadowed by exhaustion and guilt as he looks up at her, and he mutely bobs his head once to show that he’s heard. 

After they decide what to eat and place the order, she retreats to the shower. She washes off her makeup, combs out her hair, and tries to rinse some of the stress off of her skin. When she feels as settled as she is going to get, she shuts off the shower, dries off, and gets on her silk pajamas. It’s been a truly exhausting day, and she hopes that dinner will help both of them recover. 

The dinner itself is a quiet affair. They eat together in strained but companionable silence, listening to the whine and hum of the air conditioner. Geralt has made his way through most of the bottle of brandy by the time they finish, and the food and drink seem to have mellowed his mood considerably. He even smiles as she brings out his favorite soft sleeping shirts, which she brought from their family apartment in England. They smell of her and their daughter Cirilla, of their home, and he dons one of them tenderly as they get ready for bed. 

Yen turns out one bedside light and Geralt turns out the other before they slip under the sheets and curl around one another in the dim evening light. She wraps her arms around his waist, cradling his hips against her own, and presses a kiss to his back. Heaving a deep sigh, he leans back into her, starting to relax. They lay curled together like that for some time, hearts beating together. 

“He gave me a safe place to stay, Yen.” Geralt volunteers suddenly into the twilight of the room, his deep voice quiet. She tilts her head back to listen, stroking her hand down his side to show him that she heard him. He subsides back into a stifled silence, overwhelmed, and she lets him. If he’s volunteering information like this, then she knows to give him time. More will come. 

A while later, he speaks again. “His house is nice.”

“Do you like it there?” She asks quietly, smiling as he nods. 

After another long silence he adds, “He bought it because his friends were dying.” She sits up on one elbow, curious, peeking over his shoulder at him. He avoids her eyes, but recounts the story that Jaskier had told about Fire Island, about his experience of the queer community’s devastation during the 80s, his voice rough and quiet. Sliding down behind his back, she begins to stroke his hair as he tells the story, letting it wash over her as she lays behind him. When he finishes, she squeezes his shoulder gently with her small hand. 

“That sounds terribly lonely,” she observes, her voice quiet. He shrugs, glad to be facing away from her so that he doesn’t have to see her eyes. It’s her turn now to grope for words, and it takes her a moment to pick her way forward. The story made Jaskier sound very kind, but it also underscores some of her concerns about his boundaries. She chews the inside of her lip, studying Geralt’s broad back in the darkness.

“Have you felt safe in his home?” She asks, finally. He stiffens, and she grimaces, hoping he won’t shut down. The silence stretches for a long painful moment before he replies.

“Always.” He says, with a firmness that surprises her. “And don’t ask if we’ve been safe. It’s been fine. He’s fine.” The way he bites out the words, she can tell that he’s embarrassed. She frowns, opens her mouth to speak, pauses, then tries again. 

“I’m always going to ask you if you’re being safe, Geralt. You know that.” She chides. He growls and turns away from her, flattening himself to the bed on his stomach. Shaking her head, she follows him, laying across his back to provide pressure and comfort. She shakes loose her hair, allowing it to spill down over his shoulders, and smiles when his hand comes up to tangle in her curls even as he grumbles. 

“You’ve been intimate with him. Have you been using condoms?” She presses. He shakes her gently, trying halfheartedly to dislodge her, but she doesn’t budge. After a moment, he nods. 

“Good.” She sighs, relieved and scared and sad, feeling like everything is a little out of her depth right now, a little too far out of her control. Sinking down against his back, she squeezes him close. 

“Has he ever pressured you?” She asks into the worn fabric of his t-shirt, reluctant to upset him more but determined to ascertain if he is genuinely safe. 

“No. He offered to stop.” Geralt grumps into his pillow, the answer so quick it surprises Yennefer again. She relaxes slightly. She can feel the gentle tugs as Geralt works his fingers in her hair, rubbing the damp curls and allowing them to spring back, the sensation as familiar and comforting to her in its own way as it is to him. 

“I’m glad to hear that,  _ mój drogi _ ,” she says, feeling some of the tension beginning to leave her body. Turning her head, she kisses the back of his neck. “You’re precious to me. If I have to share my husband, I want him to be treated like a prince.” She chuckles, and Geralt huffs a quiet laugh under her, relaxing minutely. 

“Did you take the time to get to know him any?” She asks softly into his skin. “Did you talk?”

“We lived together for two weeks, Yen. Yes, we talked.” Geralt replies, mildly exasperated. 

“Oh?” She presses, circling her fingers on him.

“Oh what?” Geralt grumbles, but she nudges him, not about to be deterred. He sighs and says, “He likes some of the same books I do. He plays music but he’s shy about it. Told me some great stories about the bar. Um. He asked about my childhood and I told him about candy I liked, stuff I did on base with the other kids. Told him a little about my career. Some of the crazy places I’ve been, people I’ve met. You know. We talked, it wasn’t just…” Lifting one shoulder in an uncomfortable shrug, he trails off.

“Not just sex?” Yennefer inquires. 

“Right,” Geralt replies, running his fingers through her curls again tentatively. He can feel her smile against his shirt.

Yennefer feels her body relax a little, relieved that Geralt had at least taken some time to get to know his idiot while they were diving in headfirst. She eyes the back of his head intently, her reporter’s instincts tingling. The next question she’s going to ask might just shut him down, but she suspects for once that it won’t, so she seizes her moment. 

“Do you like him?”

A ringing silence follows her words, and she can feel Geralt’s whole body go rigid under her own. His hand stops, and he drops it out of her hair and back to the bed. Sighing, she leans into him, providing as much gentle pressure as her body weight will allow. 

It’s a very personal question, which Geralt rarely handles with any kind of grace, but she wouldn’t be who she is if she didn't ask questions like this. It’s one of the things that he values most about her, but also one of the things he hates. Especially since the answer to this particular question makes him feel so very naked. Swallowing, heart beginning to hammer nervously, he clears his throat. Then he admits, with extreme slowness, “I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone more, Yen.” 

A lopsided smile spreads across her face and she squeezes him again. “I think the way you met him is absolutely insane,  _ mój drogi,  _ but I  _ also _ think it’s very sweet that there is someone you like that much. Do you want to keep seeing him?” She lifts her head and watches with amusement as the back of his pale neck reddens. Geralt isn’t a big blusher usually, but talking about Jaskier seems to be bringing it out in spades. Her smile widens as he nods into his pillow, the blush making its way rapidly up what she can see of his cheeks. 

“Geralt…” she says knowingly, nudging his back. 

“Okay,” he groans, years of resistance finally crumbling. There wasn’t anywhere to hide anymore, not after everything that had happened recently. “I’m gay. Are you happy now?” Even saying it aloud frightens him to his core, makes his heart hammer and his palms sweat. It feels like one of the most dangerous things that he has ever said. The feeling is awful, but also oddly freeing. 

“Oh, Geralt… yes.” Shocked, she tries to keep her voice calm. This is huge, but she doesn’t want to startle or embarrass him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say it aloud,  _ mój drogi. _ That’s a big step. I’m very happy.” She grins as he growls into the pillow, hiding his face from her. 

“You deserve happiness, Geralt. I’m glad you’re starting to be able to talk about this.”

“I hate it.”

“I know,  _ kochany, _ but it’s important.”

He snorts into the pillow, idly trying to shake her off again. She just tightens her thighs around his hips, laughing quietly, relief coursing through her in rushes. If he can stop dying on that hill, she thinks there’s at least a chance that he can make it through everything else. 

Changing the subject again, she says, “You mentioned he bought that house and re-fitted it. That takes a lot of money, especially for someone as young as you say he was at the time.” He shrugs, but she can tell from the way he turns his head that he’s listening. “He said his last name is Pankratz. Any relationship to Pankratz Enterprises?”

“Why?” Geralt asks, turning his head enough to eye her suspiciously. 

“Well, because it would explain the money,” she says. “They’re an investment firm. One of my coworkers did a story on some of the business they were doing over in Japan… Mostly electronics. Nothing exciting.” She sits up and starts knuckling up and down his back, kneading at the tense muscles and trying to reassure him that she isn’t about to start on some tirade. To be fair, this is something she frequently does when investment firms are a subject of conversation, so his wariness is well justified. Eventually, as she continues not to comment on it, he relaxes. 

“He mentioned the company in relation to his family.” Geralt admits finally. 

“Well then. You really  _ have _ landed on your feet _ , _ ” she laughs. “Your idiot is rich, handsome, and he seems very kind.” 

“He’s not an idiot, and he’s not mine,” Geralt complains, gathering the pillow up under his head. 

“He’s a little bit of an idiot,  _ kochany, _ ” she replies wryly, digging her knuckles carefully into a knot. He wheezes and grumbles but allows it, enjoying the touch. “He fucked you and  _ then _ offered you a job. The ethics there are a little blurry, Geralt.” She pauses and cocks her head to the side. “Are you going to take it?” 

“Yen…” Geralt groans, rubbing his face into the pillow, surging with embarrassment. “I don’t know. Maybe? I think I want to, I just…” He heaves a sigh into his pillow. “I don’t know.”

Yen blinks slowly and then reaches up to smooth her hand across his face and hair again, her cool fingers soft. “It’s good that you waited to say yes, then.” She reassures. “It sounds like you have a little sense left after all.” Leaning down, she kisses his cheek. “It sounds like fun, but it could also be a bit much for you right now, hmm?” Geralt hunches his shoulder as her hair tickles his ear, nudging her face away from him, but she can feel him shake with a brief, silent chuckle. 

“Maybe,” he admits. The night at the bar had been one of the most exhilarating of his entire life; he’d felt safer and more alive there than he had ever felt anywhere else. But it was also such a culture shock that he was still shaken by it, still processing everything he’d seen and heard and felt. He isn’t sure yet if he can handle being so out among queer people. To be immersed in a whole community where everyone  _ knew. _ Even though the idea was thrilling, some deep old fear gripped him every time he thought about committing to that level of vulnerability. 

“Well. We’ll keep it in mind as we’re figuring out how to pick up all the pieces then, okay  _ kochany _ ?” Yennefer says, sitting back up and resuming work on the knot near his spine. She smiles to herself at the idea of him perched behind some bar serving leather men and drag queens. He was too afraid to admit it to most people, but she knew he loved watching queer people perform and express themselves. Someday, the job might even be good for him. But right now, they’d have to take everything one thing at a time. 

He nods, hiding his face back in the pillow, and sinks into silence as she continues to knead him. Some time later he mumbles, “I really like him and I don’t know what to do, Yen.” 

Yennefer pauses and sighs, hands coming to rest on his shoulders. “Have you considered going on a real date with him,  _ kochany? _ You know… get to know him properly? Maybe talk about… boundaries?” She tickles the back of his neck lightly, causing him to growl and swat lightly at her hand. Laughing, she rests her hand on his back again. He shifts under her, subtly moving back and forth as he tries to sort his way through feelings he’s never really had to deal with before. She drapes comfortably on him, resting, feeling the shifts and tics as he processes. 

“No,” he admits finally. “I hadn’t.” 

Yennefer sighs, feeling sorrow twist her heart. “Did it even occur to you?” She asks gently.

“No,” Geralt mumbles, feeling the raw ache in his own heart. He was afraid to be seen in public with a love interest, much less go on a date. Until very recently, there had been too much hanging on the risk of getting caught. He could have lost his job, his reputation, even potentially complicated his right to custody of his daughter should something happen to Yennefer. 

It didn’t change how much he wanted to do it though. To be able to walk out with someone just like any other couple, without the fear of one’s whole life collapsing around their ears. Instead… The muscles in his back give a little shiver as he remembers some of the things he’s seen. Risking death to hold a lover’s hand in public had always seemed like a bad deal to him. Until now, he’d never put himself in a position where he’d have to worry about it.

Yennefer lifts her head and watches what she can see of his face, feeling the longing and fear radiating off of him. Geralt didn’t seem to think he had a right to be happy, and he’d consistently avoided situations where he might have too much joy. It was heartbreaking to watch, and she thought she might burst if she saw him do it to himself even one more time. 

She worries at her lip for a moment, then reaches out and uses her thumb to rub gentle circles into Geralt’s jaw, loosening some of the deeply held tension there. After a while, he turns his head, giving her access to the other side. Bit by bit, she can feel him relaxing. She mulls for a while longer, then says, “It’s all right to want him, you know.” 

Geralt turns his face back into the pillow, the tips of his ears burning. She withdraws her hand, but remains on his back, a gentle weight on him that his touch-hungry body anchors to and finds solace in. “I know,” he admits after a long moment. He’d been on a long journey to even get to the point of being able to say that aloud, but his family had finally gotten him there.

Homosexuality had been decriminalized in England while Yennefer had been in college, and she’d grown up in a culture that by and large had room for homosexuality. By the time that she and Geralt had actually met she’d long been accustomed to the idea that it was all right to be queer. She’d been the first person to really talk with him about it, to try and convince him that there wasn’t anything wrong with him. When Yennefer had clued Coën in, much to Geralt’s surprise he had joined in supporting him without batting an eyelash. Coën had grown up with a queer cousin, and they had remained close as adults. To him, Geralt’s sexuality had been normal, unremarkable even. 

Over the years, they had finally gotten him to concede that he at least had the theoretical right to want who he wanted. It hadn’t been easy for him, though, and this was whole new territory. Wanting Jaskier was one thing, but seeing him romantically was another entirely. That was before even taking into account that his daughter was currently living in another country. 

Yennefer can practically hear the gears in Geralt’s brain grinding. She snorts softly, biting his shoulder. “Stop,” she says dryly, chuckling as he gives a little jump. Then she grins lopsidedly at him. “Do you  _ want _ to date him,  _ kochany _ ?” She feels him stiffen again, but this time she just watches him fondly as he works his way through it. Sure enough, a long moment later, he nods. 

Her heart does a twisting swoop, and she smoothes her hands over his shoulders. She feels deeply torn as she considers the situation in front of her in all its complicated glory. Geralt, freshly found after being discharged from the Army, frighteningly depressed and possibly in love. Her daughter and best friend overseas in England waiting for news, waiting for their family to come back together. And herself, caught in the middle of it, trying to make sense of what to do next. 

On the one hand, it felt like the sensible thing to do was go back to England. Forget about the whole affair here, get Geralt grounded where she had social resources to get him stabilized, bring him back to everything that was familiar to her. Not to mention, being gay was legal in England, at least in private. 

On the other hand, she had never seen Geralt so desperately in need of happiness, of reasons to stay alive. Everything he’d built his life around had shattered out from beneath him all in one go. The military hadn’t just been his adult life; the man who had raised him had started training him to be an Army officer as soon as he could walk. There had never been any other options for him. She couldn’t imagine the pain he was in. Who was she to take away the little spot of hope that had come from his discharge? 

And just like that, she knew the answer; no one. She was no one to take away his bright spot when he needed it most. As attached as she was to London, even she had never lived there for any length of time. Her career demanded she and Coën were on the move constantly, and her homeschooled daughter was well adapted to the routine of packing up and moving to new places. It was worth at least considering the possibility of giving Geralt the chance to try reaching for joy, for once.

“Well then…” she sighs, leaning into him softly. “I used enough miles to rent the room for a month. I thought I might just get them refunded, but…” she hesitates, worrying, then plunges on. “If you want to take a little more time to get things figured out here, I would be willing to consider staying.” Beneath her, Geralt goes very quiet and still, wary but interested in what she has to say next. 

“It sounds like you made a special connection with that lover of yours,  _ kochany. _ That doesn’t happen every day. If you wanted to explore seeing him, I would support you.” She runs her fingers delicately down the back of his neck, knowing how best to soothe him. Feeling the wariness singing in his muscles, she caresses him softly.

Geralt stares at the headboard as his mind churns, feeling just as torn as Yennefer does. As bad as things had gotten before he left home, he knew he should return to Ciri and Coën. Even the idea of lingering here to pursue a potential love interest feels dangerously selfish. Especially given how much shame it might bring on his innocent daughter, who hadn’t asked to be dragged into his mess of a life. Unlike Coën and Yennefer, she couldn’t walk away. What gave him the right to pursue joy at her expense?

“What about Ciri?” he asks, eventually. “I can’t just make decisions like that for her.”

“Decisions like what? Taking a little time for yourself after a devastating life change? Hush. You’ve never needed to care for yourself more than you do now. Let me worry about Ciri for a moment.” Yennefer chides. “When it comes to making important decisions like moving her, we make those choices together. As a family. But this?” Smiling sadly, she smoothes her hand across the back of his head. “This isn’t that. You’re a grown man, you get to have a lover. That’s a choice you are making for  _ you, _ not her.” She leans down and places a kiss on the back of his head. “And you know what? I support you. I’ve got your back. You really do have time, Geralt. I had already planned to be gone at least until the end of July, just in case I needed the time to track you.” She snorts fondly and tweaks his ear. “Which I’m still angry you made me do, by the way.” 

The awful, tense mood he is in cracks slightly and he lets out a painful little chuckle. He feels weirdly light. “Sorry,  _ neshama shelì, _ ” he rumbles. 

“Good,” she sighs, exasperated. “You should be.” She sits up, giving him some room to breathe and think. “This is one of those situations where you really do get to choose,  _ kochany. _ Think about it. I’m right here.”

Beneath her, Geralt nods. Slowly, he begins to mull his options. His life feels like it’s been exploded, and the world lay wide open in front of him. Granted, most of it would be full of closed doors; a gay veteran, nearly a retiree, with what amounted to a felony conviction on his record… that kind of man wasn’t going to get far. But it was still far more choice than he’d ever had in his life. There was no one left to impress except his family. No more sword hanging over his head; it had already fallen. 

And Jaskier… as stupid and complicated as it was likely to be if he tried to date him, he couldn’t shake the aching desire to be back in his arms again. He’d never had the pleasure of sweet, slow mornings in a lover’s embrace before. Quiet hours talking, unafraid of interruption or judgment. The peace of knowing a lover was coming home to him, to wrap him in safety and peace. 

“I know it probably won’t work out…” Geralt hedges, “But what if it does? What then? You all have lives in England.”

“Well… if it  _ does _ go well, then we’ll figure out what then,” Yennefer replies firmly. The whole mess is giving her a bad case of the nerves, but she meant it when she said she would back him up. “Even if it does, we can figure something out. There are two major metropolitan areas nearby that have branches I can work out of. Besides, you know how many times we’ve moved. This wouldn’t be too different.” 

She pauses, chewing the inside of her lip as she watches his gears begin to grind again. “Normally,” she adds, her voice softer, “I would be the first to insist you go home and see your daughter right away.” He nods, evidently relieved she’s brought it up. “But,” she continues. “Nothing about this is normal, Geralt. Not a single,  _ bloody _ thing. The playbook’s been torn up. There’s no right answers here. And if there’s anything good that can come out of you being discharged like this? Then I think you should take it in both hands,  _ kochany. _ This isn’t some situation where you would be abandoning us.”

Oddly, a rush of relief accompanies those last words. On some level, that had been precisely what he was worrying about but hadn’t been able to put voice to. Every time he’d left his daughter, he’d felt like he was abandoning her, over and over again. He couldn’t do that to her in yet another way, especially not over something as frivolous and shameful as a lover. He’d been selfish long enough. But Yennefer didn’t ever encourage him if there wasn’t hope. It wasn’t in her nature. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice husky and quiet. 

Seeing that he needs the reassurance, Yennefer bites down on a surge of impatience and nods. Normally she doesn’t have this much bandwidth for when Geralt dithers, but tonight is special, and she’s sure as hell going to make some allowances for him. He has a right to be frightened and unsure about this. 

“I’m sure,” She says firmly. “You’re stuck with us, Geralt. Wherever you go now, we’ll follow you. You won’t be able to get rid of us anymore,” she very gently teases, sliding down to hug him tightly again as she sees the ghost of a smile twitch his lips. 

“Promise?” he murmurs, turning his head to look over his shoulder at her. His heart warms as he sees her violet eyes twinkling over his shoulder. 

“Promise,” she assures him. If she had it her way, he wasn’t ever getting out of their line of sight again. 

He shifts under her, feeling a rush of hope wash over his confused, stressed out body. Flicking his fingers nervously, he says, “Okay.” Then, “Is it really ok to try?”

Yennefer huffs quietly. “If I have to tell you one more time, I’m going to write it on your forehead,” she grumbles affectionately. “You really want to do this?” Beneath her, there is another long, stiff hesitation. Then, a nod. 

“Good. Then tomorrow, I’m going to have one more talk with him. A  _ proper _ one, this time. Just like we agreed.”

“Yen… you’re meddling,” Geralt grumps, making a very idle attempt to toss her off. She just tightens her thighs and stays put. 

“I am,” she agrees with a little smile. “You promised I could interview any new boyfriends before we even got married. I know it was a long time ago,  _ kochany, _ but I haven’t forgotten.” 

“Worst thing I’ve ever agreed to,” Geralt grunts irritably, but there’s no heat in his tone. Yennefer smirks. 

“ _ Mój drogi, _ I’m here to back you up, but I still get to be myself,” she reminds him dryly. “You met a man at long last, now I get to have my fun.” 

“Didn’t you harass him enough at the hospital?”

“Mmm, no. I don’t think I will ever have harassed him enough,” she teases, eliciting another groan from the general region of the pillow. “Seriously though, Geralt, I have a few more questions to ask him. And I have some concerns about his boundaries that I want to be clearer about before I get out of your way… It’s not normal to bring a man into your house and bed so quickly, love. What if there’s something really wrong?”

“He’s fine.” Geralt snaps, becoming irritated. “Will you lay off?”

“Would you?”

He hesitates, then subsides with a bubbling grumble, conceding the point. If the circumstances had been flipped and he’d had to hunt Yennefer down, he knows he would have been even worse to the person he found her with. 

“Fine.” He groans, pressing his face into his forearms. “So tomorrow you’re going to go harass him some more?”

“Well…” She sighs, relenting. “Only a little. Mostly I want to have a real adult talk with him… if he really wants to date you, then I need to know who he is first. Besides, he and I need to have an understanding. He needs to know I’m not going to just go away if he starts dating you.”

Geralt frowns. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to. When she had agreed to marry him, they had ended up having long talks about what would happen if one of them fell in love someday. If she was going to marry him, to share rearing a child with him, then they had both agreed she had the right to get to know who he was bringing into their lives and vice versa. “Okay, Yen. Fuck. Fine, you can harass him a little more. But then it stops. I need some fucking peace and I don’t want you two to be having pissing matches around me all the time.” He growls irritably. 

Yennefer laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “You’re taking all my fun away,” she pouts, then dodges as he swats ineffectually at her, laughing. “Fine. Fine, I’ll tone it down after tomorrow.” She nudges him. “Unless he tells me something really concerning, I’ll support you, ok?”

Geralt hesitates, then nods. He reaches up, groping until he finds her hand, then he squeezes it gently. She squeezes back, falling silent. They sit there in the dark, breathing quietly, the muscles in Geralt’s back occasionally jumping as he relaxes by inches. A long while later, his low voice breaks the quiet. 

“I want him, Yen. It’s… stupid… I know it is. But…”

“Don’t be ashamed for wanting a beautiful man, Geralt. You’re allowed,” she reassures him, squeezing him tightly. “Don’t let ghosts take away your joy. I certainly won’t.” 

He swallows hard and nods. When she was pregnant with Cirilla, Geralt had been a wreck. Vesemir, his adopted father, had been dead for some years at that point. Despite that, Geralt had been plagued by fears of what Vesemir would think of the way Geralt’s daughter had come into the world, much less what he’d think of the way Geralt had acquired his wife. Coën had seen his terrible fear, tried to help him work through it, and eventually had gotten sick of it. ‘You can’t let ghosts take away your joy, man.’ He had told Geralt, exasperated. For some reason, the words had stuck with him. Had stuck with all of them. It was certainly a bad habit that Geralt had. Over time, it had become a familiar turn of phrase in their little family when he was struggling. 

“Well then,” she says, after a moment. “Sounds like that’s decided. Give me his address and I’ll go see him again tomorrow. If he’s going to be dating you, he gets to run the gauntlet first,” she chuckles. “He’s lucky Coën isn’t here yet or he’d be in double trouble.”

“Oh god, Yen, please tell him to lay off of Jaskier, this is bad enough as it is…”

“Never gonna happen,  _ kochany, _ ” she laughs. “If you really get settled here, we’re all going to follow you. Jaskier’s never going to get a moment’s peace.” 

“At least I won’t be alone with you crazy fuckers anymore,” Geralt grumbles, gently trying to dislodge Yennefer one last time, without any serious effort. 

“That’s right, love. You know what else I’m going to do tomorrow?” She hums pleasantly, leaning into him again. 

“What.” He inquires flatly, worn out and ready to be done with talking.

“I’m going to save you a trip to the store for new clothes,  _ kochany _ . I know how badly you hate shopping. I will get you some nice civilian outfits…” She kisses the back of his neck. “And some clothes for dates.”

He hesitates for a long moment, finding that his throat has suddenly closed on him. The way Yennefer is doting on him right now isn’t unheard of, but he usually avoids putting himself in positions where she has the opportunity to do so. He doesn’t feel like he deserves any of this. Not even a little bit. But the love is reaching him nevertheless, and as painful as it is, he finds to his embarrassment that he is also grateful for it. 

“Sound good?” she prompts gently. It has been a long day, and he’s spoken to her more, on more emotional things, than he has in years. When he nods, she kisses the back of his head again. “Ok,  _ mój drogi. _ Let’s get some rest.”

Slipping off of his back, she gathers her hair back into a braid for the night. Then she curls along his side. He rolls, turning and gathering her underneath his chin, nuzzling softly against the top of her head. She hums contentedly, tangling her fingers in his soft shirt. It has been a long time since she’s had him in her bed, and the peace of it makes her feel heavy and safe. They drift off to sleep together curled in a tight knot, taking solace from being together again at last.


	9. Mockingbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies! Here is the next chapter of Warrior’s Blues! In it we feature nervous Jaskier making comfort food while Yennefer finally lets him in on the big secret with her marriage to Geralt. Yennefer lives her best life making the poor bastard nervous again, and Geralt getting his feet a little more under him. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!
> 
> Glossary:  
> MWR- Morale, Welfare, and Recreation. Basically a rec center.  
> Kochany- Sweetheart  
> Neshama shelì- Term of endearment, literally 'my soul'  
> Mój drogi- My dear

__

_ The road outside the bar was quiet. She pulled her black blazer up around her shoulders, neatening her outfit in a storefront window. Then she eyed her reflection critically. When she was satisfied, she approached the door of the bar. From the outside, the place looked like a dive, but when she pushed inside she saw that it was actually a neat, well-appointed little space. The floor was wooden, and brass fixtures winked in the dimness. There was a subtle, pervasive odor of cumin lingering in the air, a memory of good cooking mixing with the more typical bar smells of spilled beer and cigarettes. Sitting in the far corner was a pale, broad-shouldered young man with ice blond hair shorn in a military cut. He was dressed in a plain tan shirt and khaki pants. _

_ He raised his head when he heard the door. The place was almost deserted. Despite this, there was a cozy, well-lived feeling to the neat seating and lovingly polished tables. When he saw her, his face lit up. Yennefer had been running a little late, and his anxiety had been starting to get the best of him.  _

_ “Yennefer,” he rose to his feet to greet her as she crossed the room. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”  _

_ “I’m the one who asked you for a drink, Geralt, why wouldn’t I come?” She gave him an irritated look. She slung her purse off of her shoulder and hung it on the chair, putting herself bodily between the young man and his attempt to pull the chair out for her. Her violet eyes flashed as she fixed him with a look that very clearly said, ‘don’t touch.’  _

_ His eyes widened, and he gingerly took one step back, then another, waiting until her expression softened before he stilled again. He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, then gestured vaguely towards the bar. “What can I get you?” Despite her sharp temper and sharper tongue, or perhaps because of it, Geralt had become fascinated with her as they worked together. She was whip-smart, merciless, and graceful in equal measures. He was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, even though she didn’t seem to like him very much. It had made his week when she’d grudgingly asked him out for a drink to get to know him better, but he hadn’t been certain she liked him enough to actually follow through.  _

_ She eyed him impatiently as she considered. She found herself wishing he would stop looking at her like a nervous puppy, and she stared at him in vaguely concealed irritation. If anything though, the stare made it worse. She came to a decision and pulled the chair out neatly, seating herself at the table. “Arak, please. On the rocks.”  _

_ “Chalav shel Ariot,” he said with a quick little smile. “Sure, I’ll be back.”  _

_ She cocked her head at him, eyeing him curiously as he turned to leave. Milk of Lions, another name for the liquor arak. It was a common enough term among the locals, but she didn’t think she’d heard anyone else on base use it.  _

_ As he returned a moment later, she sat back skeptically and took her glass from him. He sat down across from her with a beer and a shot glass full of clear undiluted arak. Her own was white, the sugars transformed by contact with the water from the ice. She drew her fingers along the cool sides of her glass, noticing that he didn’t seem to be making eye contact. Instead he watched her fingers trace beads of moisture.  _

_ “Is this what you do all day? When you’re not being a pain in my ass?” She asked, observing the softness of his face up close. He usually had a stern expression. It was easy to miss how handsome he actually was, with wide topaz eyes and a cupid’s bow lip. To her surprise, he smiled crookedly and looked up at the ceiling fixtures, taking in the brass on the lights and dark iron brackets.  _

_ “Yeah. This is where I spend a lot of my time. Coën likes it here too.”  _

_ “He mentioned,” she replied dryly. “More than once.” She took a slow sip of the arak, the sharp burn of the aniseed flavored liquor pleasant across her tongue.  _

_ “What brings you to this part of the world?” He asked quietly, now studying the table. His big hands were wrapped around his beer mug, but they gave the impression of nervousness stilled, like he would normally be in motion but was concealing it. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Yennefer had a keen eye for body language. Though she wouldn’t have readily admitted it, she’d been observing him closely for some time now. They had spent a lot of time together, both in and out of the field, and it had given her time to catalogue his tells. She crossed her legs and considered his question, examining her glass.  _

_ “I was assigned back here after college because I speak a couple of the local languages,” she said. “I grew up Ashdod, down the coast from here.”  _

_ He licked his lips, nodded, then assayed a reply in Hebrew. <<Where did you go to college?>> _

_ She frowned, putting her glass down and leaning towards him. <<What did you just say?>> _

_ <<You said you came back after college. Where did you attend school?>> he tried again, shooting her a hopeful look over the edge of his mug.  _

_ Surprised, she sat back. <<University of London. Why?>> She’d known from their field work that he knew at least a little of the local languages, enough to get by, but she had apparently underestimated how fluent he actually was. _

_ <<I was wondering where your accent came from. You have an Israeli accent but you don’t sound quite like the locals. I thought the UK maybe.>> He took a long swallow of his beer. <<I graduated from Lexington Military College.>> _

_ <<I know,>> she said wryly. <<I did a little digging after you got pinned to my ass by your CO.>> _

_ He shook his head and flashed another crooked grin, chuckling. <<Sorry about that. I don’t think he likes me very much.>> _

_ <<Yes, well, I don’t like you very much either,” She replied, without any real heat.  _

_ He tilted his glass at her ironically, then took a drink. <<Why the invitation, then?>> he inquired, lifting his gaze and catching her eyes with his own for the first time this whole conversation. A small shock ran through both of them, and she held his gaze for only a moment before looking off to the side, feeling oddly off balance.  _

_ <<Coën kept insisting that I should get to know you, since we’re stuck working together so often.>> _

_ He smiled at the table top. <<Coën’s a good guy. I like him.>> _

_ <<He is.>> She admitted, taking another swallow of arak. The burn was pleasant, smoother now that the ice had begun to melt into the alcohol. Rolling liquor on her tongue, she considered him with renewed intensity. <<How did you learn Hebrew?>> _

_ Golden eyes came up and played briefly across her face, then dropped off to the side to study a nail in the floor. <<When I heard I was being assigned out here I picked up some books. And…>> he shrugged, taking a long swallow of his beer. <<I listen to the locals. I try to talk with them. David corrects me a lot.>> With a jerk of his head, he indicated the bartender quietly puttering around behind the bar across the room from them.  _

_ She frowned, leaning towards him again. <<How much time did you have? That doesn’t seem right.>> _

_ <<Uhm… A year? Less? Not long.>> He replied, shrugging. <<I got more serious about it after I was assigned to you. I know people enjoy hearing their own language. I thought you might like it.>> His lips quirk as he feels her gaze on him, feeling put on the spot.  _

_ Despite herself, she found the corners of her lips tugging with a smile. <<That’s insane,>> she said. <<I don’t believe you.>> _

_ He shrugged, tossing back the last of his beer. <<Believe what you want.>> He chased it with the shot of arak, then shook his head to clear his burning sinuses.  _

_ She leaned back, taking her glass with her and cradling it close to her chest. <<Do you just speak, or do you read, too?>> _

_ Licking his lips, he nodded. When he spoke again, she stared in astonishment.  _

_ <<Not the peace of a cease-fire, _

_ not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, _

_ but rather _

_ as in the heart when the excitement is over _

_ and you can talk only about a great weariness. _

_ I know that I know how to kill, _

_ that makes me an adult. _

_ And my son plays with a toy gun that knows _

_ how to open and close its eyes and say Mama. _

_ A peace _

_ without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares, _

_ without words, without _

_ the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be _

_ light, floating, like lazy white foam. _

_ A little rest for the wounds— _

_ who speaks of healing? _

_ (And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation _

_ to the next, as in a relay race: _

_ the baton never falls.) _

_ Let it come _

_ like wildflowers, _

_ suddenly, because the field _

_ must have it: wildpeace.>> _

_ <<Where on earth did you learn that?>> She asked after a long, shocked silence.  _

_ He shrugged awkwardly.. <<I saw the book in a pile of your things while you were working. Yehuda Amichai,  _ Not For the Sake of Remembering _. Uh. I got my hands on a copy of it. I thought you might like that one. I like it.>> _

_ <<It’s my favorite from that whole book,>> she replied, taken aback. Not even her cameraman Coën, her closest friend, knew that. She tossed back the rest of her glass, taking the time to gather her suddenly scattered thoughts.  _

_ <<Why are you a soldier? With a mind like that, you’re wasted in the army.>> _

_ The smile he gave the table, brief though it was, was like sunlight flashing across still water.  _

_ <<Thanks, I think?>> He toyed idly with his empty glass. <<I’m uh, in the army because my old man’s a Colonel and he raised me to follow his footsteps. Ran the base out in Powidz, Poland until they forced him to retire. I guess I always was headed here.>> Shrugging, he stood. <<Want another round?>> _

_ <<Please,>> she said, offering her empty glass. He nodded and took it, returning a moment later with new glasses of beer and arak. Placing the milky glass of liquor in front of her, he sat back down.  _

_ <<Why are you a journalist? Especially writing about what you do… interviewing who you do? It’s fucking dangerous.>> He leaned back in his chair, holding his beer against his chest and eyeing her curiously. The tension in his body was starting to fade, and he looked both kinder and younger as a result.  _

_ She felt a curious warmth, looking at him. It was similar to the burn of the alcohol, but it tingled in her hands, in her chest. Taking a long swallow of liquor, she considered his question. They eyed each other curiously. <<I think I did it because I hate people lying.>> She waved her hand as she took another sip, explaining, <<Which, granted, makes what I do for a living ironic.>> He nodded and chuckled, taking a drink from his mug while he listened.  _

_ <<Um… I think I do it because I get to write everything down. Even if what I publish is… what it is, what I do to get paid, I know that somewhere there is a true and real account of what happened. What was said. Who was saying it and why. I know it’s written down somewhere, impossible to erase. And every now and then I get to really destroy someone awful, which makes some of the bullshit worth it.>> _

_ <<Good answer,>> he said, eyebrows going up. <<Not sure what I was expecting, but I like that. You’re ferocious. I love watching you scare the shit out of people around here.>> _

_ She laughed, genuinely and openly. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh like that, and he liked it. He never wanted her to stop.  _

The road is wide and quiet, shaded by drooping, dusty trees. They are big, old, their gnarled branches weaving together to create a dim canopy that covers the early morning road and sidewalks in flickering shadows. The houses lining the street are old Victorian and Craftsman style homes with white gables. 

Yennefer drives slowly along it, violet eyes intent as she studies the neighborhood. The hum of the rental car’s engine is quiet as she rolls past house after house, scanning for the proper number. The first thing she spots even before that is Geralt’s battered old truck. It sits in the driveway of a simple blue house with a white wooden staircase spiraling up the outside. Next to it is a small white car with black songbirds printed on the trunk, done in pen-and-ink style art. They carry flowers, small splashes of color against the plain background. Yellow buttercups, blue cornflowers, red poppies, even blue forget-me-nots are carried in their beaks. 

Flicking on the turn signal, she waits for a green van to slowly pass going the other way before she pulls up in the driveway behind Geralt’s truck. Pulling the parking brake, she leans back in her seat to rest and gather herself. It had been a long, emotional night and she was still jet lagging terribly. Still, she thought that getting out while Geralt was still asleep was probably for the best, so she had risen early to take care of things.

When she gets out of the car a wall of sticky, humid air hits her immediately. With a brief expression of displeasure she eyes the sky, then turns around and retrieves her purse from the car. She pauses to flick open her compact, checking over her appearance. Despite her exhaustion, she is impeccably appointed as always, black pinstripe suit pressed, white blouse spotless, makeup crisp even in the soggy heat. She tucks a hair back into place, snaps the compact closed, and locks up the car. 

Striding up the driveway, she follows the concrete path around the side of the house to the front door. As she goes, she curiously studies the place that Geralt has been living. The walkway is plain, lined on either side with a leafy, ill-kept rock garden that has seen better days. Many of the rocks are painted, little friendly blobs of swirled color intermixing with odd little symbols and tiny hand-painted fairies from children’s movies randomly amongst the plain stones. The door itself is wooden, with a rectangular stained glass panel in the middle containing a simple diamond and square motif typical of the town during the era that the house was constructed. She rings the bell. 

“Just a moment!” She hears a voice call from the depths of the house. The door opens a beat later, revealing Jaskier. He gives her an uncertain look, hesitates, then opens the door wide so that he can face her directly. 

He is wearing long blue shorts that look like they belonged to a suit before someone shortened them and took to them with a bedazzler. There is a swirling pattern of rhinestones up each leg, with little hearts winking on each of his hips amidst the swirls. His big loose button down shirt is white, with splashes of blue watercolor style flowers all over it. Near the breast of the shirt on the left is a silk screened mockingbird in black and white, with a little curl of rhinestones coming from its beak like it is exhaling them in song. He looks tired, with shadows smudged under his eyes, and his hair is damp from the shower. 

“Can I help you?” He queries, wary. It had been a long, shitty night full of self-recrimination for him that had left him feeling like the middle of him had been scooped out, leaving him empty and sore. He’d been expecting to see Yennefer today, but he didn’t think anything could prepare him for dealing with her again. He was a grown adult, though, and if he had to face the music, he would do it with as much dignity as he could muster.

She looks him up and down, considering him. Of all the types of men she’d expected Geralt to go in for, someone as colorful as this wasn’t even on the list. It’s oddly sweet that her quiet, withdrawn husband would be attracted to someone so different than himself. Too bad he picked an idiot. “I’m here to talk,” she announces, her eyes flashing. It is hard to resist intimidating him just a little more, especially since she isn’t entirely sure she likes him yet. 

He presses his lips together, a flash of pain and worry going through his eyes before vanishing behind a carefully constructed neutral expression. “Of course,” he says, and steps back to gesture her inside with a broad motion of his arm towards the kitchen. “Please come in. I just made a pot of coffee, would you like some?” 

“Please,” she replies, stepping past him into the house. The inside is gleaming, practically spotless, and smells like orange oil. Spotting the rack of neatly stacked shoes next to the door, she toes off her black pumps next to it. Then she strolls across the house to the kitchen island and seats herself confidently on one of the tall stools. 

Jaskier follows her with rounded shoulders, giving her a respectfully wide berth and watching her every move. He serves them both a cup of coffee, then brings out the little buttercup dishes full of sugar and cream and sets them on the counter near her. She smiles but otherwise ignores them, taking a sip of the black coffee. It’s good coffee, complex and almost sweet at its finish. As she rolls the beverage on her tongue, she looks Jaskier up and down again.

He has come to rest with his back up against the fridge, one foot up on it, knee bent, sleepily sipping his coffee. His expression is still wary as he waits for her to begin talking, cautious of her temper after yesterday’s encounter. When the silence stretches out a little too long, he stirs. “Look, if this is about his stuff, I can take you upstairs to get it…”

She shakes her head, waving this statement away. “Not necessary. Not right now, anyway.” She smiles around her cup as he frowns, as if he’s not sure he heard her correctly.

“What?” 

“I said that won’t be necessary yet. Hence,” she says, cocking her head and locking eyes with him, “why we need to talk.”

Jaskier gives her a long look of puzzlement. Pushing off of the fridge, he pours some sugar and a generous splash of cream into his coffee. “I’m afraid I’m a bit lost,” he admits, a worried note entering his voice. She didn’t want the boxes, so what  _ did _ she want? Was he in trouble or not? 

Yennefer smiles again, leaning back with her cup of coffee held close. “Did Geralt talk about me at all while he was here?” Jaskier cautiously shakes his head no, taking a sip of his coffee. He goes to say something but she gently cuts him off. “Fine. Geralt should tell you most of this, but nothing is going to make sense unless I throw you a bone first,” she smirks. 

Jaskier nods, mystified. Normally, this was the part where the spouse started demanding blood, not throwing proverbial bones. Drawing his mug in close against his chest, he leans against the counter and cocks his head to the side. 

“I’m asexual.” Yennefer explains bluntly. “He and I don’t have a sexual relationship. We married for our daughter’s sake, but we’ve never been,” she gropes for the right phrase, “physically in love. We’re as close as two people can be…” She pauses and takes a sip of coffee, giving Jaskier a direct look over the edge of her mug. “But our relationship is unusual.” 

Jaskier’s eyebrows shoot up, but he has the good sense for once to remain quiet, allowing her to continue. Daughter? With a wife Geralt didn’t have sex with? This conversation had taken a hard left turn, and he felt like he was mentally scrambling to catch up. He had so many questions. Instead of letting his nervous tongue get away from him though, he takes a long swallow of his drink.

Yennefer lowers her mug, enjoying Jaskier’s obvious puzzlement. The pleasure she feels is bittersweet, though. Sex or no, Geralt had been hers for a long time. Her heart aches a little to think that she might have to share him with the tall, elfin man in front of her. However, deep down, she had always hoped he might find someone to ease his loneliness and hunger. She draws her fingers along the side of the mug, hesitating, but finally she says, “I always hoped he was going to find someone special… eventually.” Eyeing Jaskier, she flashes him a sly look. “Maybe someone like you.” 

The way Yennefer looks at Jaskier makes his stomach flip. He feels caught somewhere between a sudden weird hope and the gnawing guilt of knowing he’s crossed lines he can’t uncross with this woman, mysterious marriage arrangement or no. He pushes off of the counter and leans forward to spoon more sugar into his coffee, trying to stir his nerves away. “I don’t think I understand,” he grimaces, shaking off the spoon and setting it aside on a little saucer. 

“No, I would be surprised if you did,” she chuckles and takes a sip of her coffee. “The reason I’m here is because it seems like he’s become very attached to you.”

Jaskier gives her a bashful, confused look. “He has?”

Yennefer meets his bashful expression with a measuring gaze, but a smile is slowly creeping up her lovely features. “He has.” Leaning forward onto her elbows, she fixes him with a serious expression. “He’s interested enough to want to stay in town for a while, which means it’s my turn to get to know you.”

Jaskier gives her a puzzled look. “Your turn?”

Yennefer smirks. “Yes, my turn. When Geralt and I got married, I knew he was going to meet someone someday.” She pauses, examining Jaskier curiously. “I didn’t want him to feel guilty about needing different things than I do. So we discussed it. There are a few things we agreed on.” She holds up fingers, ticking them off as she goes. “One, that he is free to choose his own lovers. Two, that said lover doesn’t get to meet his family unless he’s serious about them. And three, I get to have a long talk with anyone he  _ does _ want to bring home.” 

She pauses again, giving Jaskier another measuring look. “While our current apartment being in England makes bringing you home rather difficult, we can still have that long talk. I want to know more about you. If anyone is going to be seeing my husband, I have a right to know who they are.” She pauses, obviously unimpressed as she looks him from head to toe “Especially if they’re foolish enough to jump in bed with someone without asking questions first.” 

Jaskier gapes, at a loss for words. He fiddles the coffee cup nervously, mind reeling. The jab stings, but he knows he deserves it, so he leaves it. Taking a swallow of his sweet creamy coffee grounds him, the sweetness biting through some of his confusion. “Are you telling me that you’re not here to kill me? I admit I was a little worried when you showed up without Geralt.” He flashes her a lopsided little grin, trying to ease the tension of the situation.

“Afraid not. I would happily murder you, but Geralt would get upset…” she sighs, then smirks. “Step out of line and you die, but keep me happy and play your cards right? Then as far as I’m concerned, you’re free to pursue him. If you want him.” She takes another sip of her coffee.

Jaskier blinks, caught so off guard that he finds himself actually panicking a little. Wife not killing him? This is  _ not _ in the usual script. Possibly still being able to see the unbelievably hot husband? Mind broken. He pulls his coffee in close against his chest for the warmth, trying to restart his brain. In the background of his mind is a steady stream of  _ whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck _ repeating in circles. 

Yennefer laughs, watching his face journey through a number of stages of confusion. Eventually, she takes pity on him. “Breathe,” she quips. He sucks in a breath and looks at her, blue eyes wide and startled, and she gives him an amused grin. “So. Are you going to let me grill you, or should I just leave now?” she asks with a teasing twist of her lips. 

Jaskier puffs, then sputters, “Grilling? Grilling’s fine.” Still looking like he’s been hit between the eyes, he turns away and sets his coffee cup down on the counter near the stove, then opens the fridge and begins nervously pulling fruit out and setting it on the counter. When strawberries and blueberries have been pulled out, he walks across the kitchen to hanging baskets and pulls down an apple and a banana. If he was going to be interrogated, he was damn well going to have some comfort food while it was happening.

Yennefer watches with amusement, sipping her coffee. “You crossed some lines by jumping into bed with Geralt so quickly, why don’t you start there?” she says sweetly, enjoying the way he winces. 

Jaskier putters nervously with the fruit, setting up a cutting board and knife, then he bends over and pulls a stand mixer out of a cabinet, setting it up on the counter. The movement gives him time to catch up to the conversation. As he fiddles the paddle off of the mixer and goes to hunt for the attachment he is looking for, he says, “I’ve been thinking about that a great deal myself. And you’re absolutely correct,” he tosses his hair out of his eyes and glances across the room, apologetic. “I handled things with Geralt inappropriately. I’m sorry.” His lips thin out as he presses them together, looking tired and angry with himself. “I let my feelings get ahead of me sometimes. It’s not my best trait.”

“Clearly not,” she replies wryly, slightly mollified by his apology but still unimpressed. “So why did you do it?”

"I…" he returns to the stand mixer, fitting a whisk attachment onto the end of it. Then he takes the bowl out and wipes it down with a damp cloth in the sink, nervously scrubbing away miniscule specks of dust. “That’s complicated. If I answer you honestly right out the gate, I’m worried I’m going to sound crazy to you, which is the last thing I want right now.” His lips quirk in a brief, bitter smile. “I’ve already done quite enough damage, thank you. So...” he pauses and heaves a sigh, trying to gather his thoughts. “I’m going to tell you a little about myself first. Maybe help you understand?” Bright blue eyes meet hers for a moment, giving her an uncertain look. She meets gaze unflinchingly until he drops it to study the bowl in his hands. He shakes his head and returns it to the mixer stand, then goes over to the fridge. 

“Fine,” she replies, taking a slow sip of her coffee. “What do you want me to know?” 

“Well…” he bends over and sticks his head into the refrigerator, chewing his lip. “I’ve been a part of the queer community since I was a teenager. And,” he grimaces, hunting for something, “I was twenty years old when HIV was first identified. There was an outbreak at Fire Island, are you familiar?” Finding the carton of heavy cream hidden at the back of the fridge, he snags it with a satisfied noise and straightens.

“Geralt told me you were there. About your friends.” Yennefer replies quietly. “I’m sorry.” And she genuinely is, no matter how else she might feel about Jaskier. Being at the center of something like that leaves marks on people. She’d been all over the world in her job and seen many types of trauma, and the HIV epidemic had scared her to the bone wherever she encountered it. 

“Right. Well then, I don’t need to tell you the rest. Good.” Returning to the stand mixer, he dumps in cream and flicks it on at a relatively slow speed. “What’s important about it, that I want you to understand, is that, at least romantically speaking... in my experience queers are not terribly good at staying in one another’s lives after the…” he waves his hand searchingly. “The spark has passed. And the few people that I thought could be constants, slipped through my fingers without recourse.” Turning, he riffles through one of the nearby cabinets and retrieves vanilla, confectioner’s sugar, and bourbon. “So when I say that I don’t expect people to stay around long, I want you to understand what I mean.” 

She frowns, understanding dawning. “You didn’t expect him to stay.”

“No, darling. I’m afraid not. When I met Geralt… Ah. I didn’t expect much to come of it. While I’m not running a fuck-and-release program,” he cuts her a sharp look over his shoulder, “I must say I wasn’t expecting him to be around long. Which is why I didn’t ask nearly as many questions as I should have. I wanted to leave him what little peace he had… I… I felt like prying would have made things worse.” He trails off into a brief silence, measuring vanilla and bourbon and dumping them into the mixer. When he looks at her again, his expression is deeply worried. “He looked like he was in a lot of pain.” 

She grimaces at the pointed comment, hiding it with a sip from her coffee mug, irritated that she’d let him score a hit like that. 

When he finishes though, her heart sinks a little. She remembers Geralt’s distress the night before, and a flash of worry and sadness crosses her face. Pain was the understatement of the century. She’s still not sure she would even be here, but for that. Geralt was in danger, and she would do just about anything to make it better.

Taking a deep breath, he measures sugar and then starts carefully sifting it into the moving mixer with a small sieve. “I thought… why make it worse for him when he’ll have moved on shortly anyway? I thought... “ he shrugs uncomfortably, setting aside the sieve and turning up the speed on the stand mixer by increments. “I thought, he’ll stay for a few weeks, get his first few paychecks, find his own place, and be gone. And not long after that, he’ll probably find a new job, and that will be that. Good deed done.” 

“That’s… questionable, but fine. I’ll leave that alone for now. It still doesn’t explain why you started fucking him within twenty four hours of meeting him,” she points out, unimpressed. 

“No, you’re right.” He replies, shaking his head and pulling a face. “And this… is where I sound a little crazy, and I hope you’ll forgive me.” Once the mixer is at the proper speed, he turns to another cabinet and pulls out a big bowl, which he sets near the cutting board. “Um.” 

His stomach does a double flip as he tries to summon the words, feeling her violet gaze boring into his back. He begins to speak, stutters into silence, and then tries again. “I have… spent a long time ah, vigorously jousting in the lists of love, so to speak,” he observes wryly, starting to top and halve the strawberries, tossing each one into the bowl as he finishes. “Mm. And I’ve known many different kinds of love, as a result. Some, admittedly, deeper than others,” he gives a rueful chuckle. Behind him, Yennefer smirks. 

“But with Geralt…” Jaskier pauses, feeling his throat close up a little bit with sheer nerves. Taking the cutting board to the trash, he sweeps the strawberry heads into the bin and then returns to the counter to start processing the banana, peeling it and chopping it. 

“My life has always felt like a hurricane. Like there is a hurricane blowing around me and I’m just trying not to get swept away with all of the rest of the debris. But- I’m sorry, I know this is insane, oh, I sound like a crazy person. But when I’m around him, it feels like…” he heaves a shaky sigh. “It feels like the center of the hurricane found me. When he’s nearby I feel like the whole world goes silent and still. All the other madness is still whirling around the outside edges, but where he is, there’s this intense quiet… Silence so loud it makes my whole body just  _ ring _ with it, no matter what he’s doing. It’s the most beautiful feeling. And I’ve never felt that around another human being before. Not a single solitary one. And… it was terribly impulsive of me, and selfish, and I shouldn’t have done it… but I wanted to wrap myself up in that feeling for as long as I could before he vanished, too.” 

He trails off, dumping the chopped banana into the bowl. Then he glances at the stand mixer. The cream is starting to stiffen, but hasn’t reached a proper consistency yet. He turns back to the cutting board, starting to process the apple now. “I know that’s… insanely inappropriate to tell someone about their husband. Ah. And I know I’ve only known him two weeks. I don’t… I’m not saying I’m in love with him. That’s the kind of thing you only find out with trust, and time, and we haven’t had that. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m just trying to say that he’s different. And I like him. And I would be very fortunate to have the chance to know him more.” 

He dumps the apple into the bowl, then turns and looks at her. “I hope that answers your question.” His face is tired, and he looks like he doesn’t particularly expect her to be receptive to any of this. He knows he shouldn’t have kissed Geralt when he did, no matter how attracted he was to him. Normally, he might have even had the restraint to wait until things were more above board. But there were things about the situation that had triggered him deeply, and between that and the incredible depth of feeling he experienced around his handsome lover, he had lost his head. 

Yennefer takes all of this in thoughtfully, her face softening. She’d been expecting Jaskier to tell her he’d done it because he was a horny idiot, and while that is  _ partially _ what he’d said, the rest gave her pause. She didn’t hear people speak like that about anyone very often, much less her taciturn and often unfriendly Geralt. 

“Thank you for your honesty,” she settles on, then takes a swallow from her cooling coffee. “I’m really not impressed by your boundaries, but…” she sighs, relenting slightly. “It’s nice to see that you like him so much.” 

Jaskier blushes awkwardly at the backhanded compliment, busying himself by stopping the mixer to check the flavor and consistency of the whipped cream. He finds himself feeling thrown for the umpteenth time since he’d met her the day before. “I’m really very sorry I wasn’t more… uh, circumspect,” Jaskier stutters awkwardly. “I’m kind of impulsive sometimes, it’s a problem. I’m sorry.” He sprinkles a little more sugar and another dash of vanilla into the cream, then starts it going again at an even higher speed. 

“Good. You should be.” Yennefer says sharply. He winces and nods. She leans forward, putting her elbows on the counter and twirling her cup in her hand. Her face softens into a look of curiosity. “Let’s talk about your family. Where were you raised? Who raised you?” 

Jaskier tosses some blueberries into the bowl, then returns them and the remaining strawberries to the refrigerator, pulling out lemon juice in their stead. Then he fishes out a bottle of honey from a cabinet and sprinkles it and some lemon juice into the bowl of mixed fruit. He gently tosses it to coat them. Pursing his lips, he ponders where to start. He’s not sure that he wants to share this much with the intimidating stranger sitting at his kitchen island, but on the other hand, he was already in over his head. Chewing his lip, he decides to plunge forth.

“I was born here, in Rhode Island, at the local hospital. I was almost born on a ferry, point of fact.” He smiles, shaking his head and flicking off the stand mixer. “The Pankratz family home is on Martha’s Vineyard, out off the coast. My father thought he could finish  _ one last thing _ before getting in the car to leave, and my mother has never let him forget it.” Chuckling ruefully, he lowers the mixer’s bowl and retrieves the whisk attachment, shaking it as clean as he can. 

Yennefer snorts softly, thinking that if Geralt had done that to her, he’d probably have suffered permanent injuries. Her pregnancy had been bad, but Geralt had been painfully attentive to her needs. Getting to the hospital hadn’t been the problem; keeping him from jumping onto the ceiling at every minor mishap had been the real issue. “Sounds like a poor choice on his part,” she smiles.

Jaskier casts a brief smile at her. “It was. Even when I was in my teens, it was still favorite material during fights.” He grins lopsidedly as Yennefer laughs.

“I can only imagine. I would have murdered Geralt if he’d done that to me,” Yennefer admits.

“He doesn’t seem like the type,” Jaskier observes as he rinses the whisk in the sink. 

“He wouldn’t have survived my pregnancy if he was,” Yennefer smirks. “He’s a good father.”

“Now that, I believe.” Jaskier replies with a soft smile. “How old is your daughter?”

“She just turned twelve at the end of spring,” Yennefer reveals, clearly proud. She takes another sip of her coffee, then sets her mug down. “That’s neither here nor there, though. Were you raised on Martha’s Vineyard, or…?”

Jaskier nods, placing the dripping whisk on a towel. “Yeah. I was raised on the Vineyard for the most part. Summers in New York, sometimes winter holidays with our grandparents in Warsaw. Well, at least before they passed away. Attended a private school on the island all the way through high school.” He takes the mixing bowl off of its base, setting it near the fruit absently. 

“My parents are… highly motivated people. They own and operate Pankratz Enterprises. It’s the family company, and it’s been passed down for… ugh, generations. I don’t know. My father’s parents passed on before I was born, so he and my mother have been more or less in charge as long as I’ve lived. It very much consumes their time.” He tastes the whipped cream one last time, nods, then tries a piece of fruit. Shaking his head, he drizzles a touch more honey into the bowl and gives it another few stirs.

“I am… the baby of the family. No surprise there,” he gives a breathy little chuckle, shaking his head. “Um. Older brother, fifteen years older than me. He’s the actual heir of the whole… family business monstrosity. Good riddance, he can have it. And a sister, ten years older. She’s uh… I think she’s in London now, working for Sotheby’s last time I checked.” 

Yennefer’s eyebrows go up. “That takes quite a few connections to achieve, last I heard.” 

“Well…” Jaskier shrugs. “That’s my family.” He tastes the fruit again and this time he nods, setting down the bowl. “Anyhow, I came along rather late to the party. I’m ah… the embarrassment of the family. My mother and father hadn’t been in each other’s beds in years by the time I was conceived.” He pauses in the middle of getting two little ceramic bowls down, smirking at Yennefer over his shoulder. “At a swinger’s party. There’s still rather some debate as to whether my father is actually my father.” He gestures at his face. “No one in his family has blue eyes, you see.” A mischievous grin makes his eyes twinkle, and Yennefer finds herself chuckling, shaking her head. He’s charming enough, she’ll give him that. 

“So, what. He just raised you anyway?” she asks wryly, draining the last of her coffee. For the embarrassment of the family, he seemed oddly pleased by his story. 

Jaskier smirks and shrugs. His family had never failed to remind him that he didn’t quite belong, so he felt few qualms about airing their dirty laundry. It was petty, but the story usually made people smile, and knowing that somewhere his parents’ ears would be burning gave him a feeling of satisfaction. “Well, admitting I wasn’t his would have been a far worse scandal, so they never actually bothered to find out who my father was. It didn’t change much… even if I were his, I don’t think either of them would have raised me with any more care than they already did.” 

“That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement,” Yennefer observes, watching as Jaskier sets the bowls on the counter. Using the big spoon, he measures honeyed fruit into each bowl. 

“It wasn’t meant to be, darling. I was mostly raised by a nanny and our cook, if I’m going to be perfectly honest. Anything that took my mother away from work and organizing social events seemed to make her terribly nervous, and my father was worse. I don’t think he knows what the word ‘vacation’ means.” He puts the big spoon down and grabs the freshly made whipped cream. “Even when he’d actually bother to accompany us someplace, there was always a briefcase with him.” With a shrug, he measures a dollop of whipped cream onto each bowl. 

“Do you want nutmeg?” He asks, giving her a curious, hopeful look. Yennefer eyes the bowls on the counter with interest. They look tempting. Pursing her lips, she nods. “Sure.” Geralt hadn’t mentioned he was quite the little cook, but if this little display was anything to go by, he’d been fed quite well while he was in Jaskier’s home. Good. At least there was something the idiot had been doing right. 

He smiles and turns back to his spice cabinet, pulling down a grinder with part of a whole nutmeg still in it. He grinds it briefly over both bowls, then sticks a spoon in each of them. Turning, he offers it to her with a flourish. 

She gives him a skeptical look but takes it, setting it on the island in front of her. The flourishes are lost on her, but the food looks good. Privately, she marvels again that  _ this _ is the kind of man that had her husband so frazzled. There’s no accounting for taste, she supposes. 

“Can I offer you more coffee?” He asks, holding up the carafe. She nods, holding out her cup, and he fills it. Then he picks up his own bowl and spoons the fruit around, covering it in whipped cream. “Where was I?” Taking a nervous bite, he looks at her again.

“You mentioned you were raised by the staff,” she replies with a twist of her lips, as if she finds the word ‘staff’ a bit distasteful.

“Ah. Yes, I rather was.” He nods, giving her an apologetic look. He wasn’t overly fond of having staff in his childhood home either. It had never felt right. “My father preferred to pay to make problems go away, and cooking and childcare were problems for him.” Jabbing a banana with his spoon, he gives it a little moue of displeasure. 

“When I said nanny, I really mean there were a series of people who got me to school, got me home… hmm, made sure my homework was done. I wasn’t particularly close with any of them. The cook was special, though. Klaudia. She was Polish, we met her through my grandparents… I spent quite a lot of time underfoot in the kitchen, but she never seemed to mind. She’s the one who gave me my name,” he says with a fleeting smile. “Jaskier. I used to bring her flowers from the garden, and sometimes she would put them in salads. Buttercups are poisonous, of course, but I was about five when she told me about the little game of sticking a buttercup under your chin after you speak the name of someone you have a crush on… That your chin will shine yellow if you’ve spoken the name of your true love. Terribly silly, but I adored it when I was small. I became so attached to them that she started calling me Jaskier, and I loved that, too. So I kept it.” Shrugging, he takes another bite of cream covered fruit.

Yennefer smiles, taking a bite herself. The bourbon in the whipped cream is barely there, but it’s enough to make the strawberry she just bit into sing. Delicious. Apparently Klaudia had been a good teacher. Whatever else he had going on, she could admit that she was impressed by the food.

“After I graduated high school I went to New York for college. I… that was a chaotic time in my life. I’d just left private high school and had an enormous amount of freedom all at once, and I spun out for a little while. Spent a lot of time clubbing and fucking, not nearly as much time studying as I should have.” Jaskier blushes and sets his bowl aside, grabbing his coffee cup and taking a quick gulp to conceal his embarrassment. He’s usually quite unabashed about his love life, but something about this whole conversation is making him feel awkward.

“Studying?” Yennefer inquires. The idea that this man might have fucked his way through New York doesn’t entirely surprise her, but she’s curious what someone like him might have studied. “College?”

“Yes! I was lucky enough to matriculate into Juilliard as a young man. I,” he proclaims, his eyes twinkling, “have a degree as a Master of Music in historical performance. Despite a rather rocky start, I did quite well for myself by the end of my courses. I’m an adjunct professor now at the college up the street! I teach medieval music theory.” Lifting his head, he gestures to the opposite wall in the living room, indicating the different types of lute hung on the wall. “My favorite instrument is the lute.”

“Do you compose?” She asks, allowing herself to be slightly impressed. It took a fairly talented musician to even get into a college like that, much less walk away with a degree. Perhaps he was more intelligent than she had been giving him credit for. She turns to look at the beautiful instruments gleaming softly where they hang. 

“Well… Yes and no,” he says, suddenly uncomfortable. “Mostly right now I recreate ancient pieces. Put them back together and record them, style of thing. Maybe add a little of my own flair, when I’m just playing at home.” He hesitates, temporarily at a loss for words. Yennefer turns back and looks him up and down, curious about why he suddenly seems uncomfortable. 

Fingering his shirt, he gestures to the mockingbird. “The woman who made me this shirt also did the birds on my car,” he reveals quietly. “We dated for a while, after I got out of college. She ah… this is one she gave me right before we broke up. She said, it was fitting for a man who hides behind the music of other people.” Shrugging uncomfortably, he says, “I do compose, but I don’t feel I’ve ever quite gotten my legs under me with it. Maybe someday.” 

Yennefer frowns, then slowly nods. “You must be very angry with yourself to be wearing something like that.” The outfit was gaudy, sure, but she hadn’t expected it to be the sartorial equivalent of a dunce cap. Interesting. 

Jaskier looks up at her over his coffee mug and nods, a little surprised at how perceptive she is. “I am. I slept with your husband without thinking it through, and I feel… Embarrassed. Guilty.” He looks down at his coffee mug, swirling the remains at the bottom of the cup. “He has his own song. I don’t necessarily get to be part of it, and I understand that.” He shrugs, downing the last mouthful of his own coffee. 

Yennefer nods, finding herself reassured as he makes that admission. Good. He didn’t have a right to be any part of Geralt’s life, and she was glad he was aware. Any future access Jaskier might be granted to Geralt would be a privilege, and one he damn well better cherish. It was best he was aware of that now, and thankfully he seemed to be. She purses her lips, studying the shirt again. The little rhinestones wink in the light. It’s far too gaudy for her tastes, but it’s clean, well made, and on Jaskier it has a certain charm. Her eyes run over the delicate ink like feathering of the screen printed mockingbird. As she watches it glitter, another question occurs to her.

“You date women?” She asks, gesturing to the bird.

Jaskier chuckles ruefully, picking his bowl of fruit back up. “Yes, darling. I’m pansexual. When I said I’d had my share of lovers, I really did mean I’ve run the gamut.”

Yennefer shakes her head and spoons up half of a strawberry, bemused. “I would not have guessed that. You’re very…” 

“Campy? Flamboyant? Yes.” He tosses his hair out of his eyes and gives her a winning smile. “Always have been.” 

Yennefer eyes him curiously. His comfort with himself was unusual, a confidence she rarely saw in queer men. Privately she wonders how he managed to stay so at ease, but files away the question for later. If all went well, there would be time for questions like that at another juncture. 

“So. You pulled your shit together, got through school… then what?”

“Well, then I spent a year or so running myself ragged around New York and the surrounding areas trying to care for my loved ones as the AIDS epidemic worsened. I’d already been doing it during school, but once I got out, it ate up all my free time. And the ah… hospital up the road from here ended up being friendly. So over time, I ended up spending more and more time in this city, ferrying my loved ones to appointments. And eventually I started getting sick and tired myself-” He flips up his hand gently, waving away the unintentional implication. “From stress, I mean. And so I bought this house. It was good… A little spot of bright in all the shit, you know? Something stable.” He spoons up another portion of fruit, shaking his head. “So, that was my life for a while. Um. It’s also sort of what led to the bar.” 

“How so?” Yennefer asks, interest piqued. She takes another bite of fruit as she listens. This was definitely a story she wanted to hear. 

“Well…” He licks his lips and ponders. “A lot of my HIV+ friends ended up experiencing a lot of stigma. People were scared… No one understood yet what was happening. And I started getting more and more people showing up at my house every night.” Laughing, he gestures around. “It’s quiet now, but it used to have a lot more furniture. Wall to wall queers some nights, darling. We’d host art parties and try to keep up the spirits of the sick men I had living with me… It was fun.” 

Yennefer half-smiles, looking around the room behind her, trying to imagine the quiet, elegant space full of rowdy queer people doing art. “Sounds like an adventure,” she muses with a quiet chuckle. “So what then?”

“Then, one of my friends who I was hosting wanted to go to a bar. One last time, sort of thing… And we discovered that the few bars around here didn’t have much in the way of wheelchair access or safety accommodations for someone who was immunocompromised. We worked for months trying to get someplace to do the right thing, and he kept getting worse…” A dark look comes over Jaskier’s face. “At a certain point it became urgent. So,” he shrugs uneasily, “I paid for it myself.” He sets aside his empty bowl and turns around, turning on the kettle. 

“I prefer very much to make my own money and leave my family alone, but some things are worth it. In this case my friend who we were doing all of this for- James- uncovered a secret need in the local scene. There were a lot of queers who wanted a clean space with wheelchair access.” Digging in the cabinet, he pulls out a sachet of loose chamomile flowers, a strainer, and a small teapot. 

“I imagine there were,” Yennefer replies softly, her heart constricting. She looks around the room again, seeing it in a different light now. 

“So… Once I’d gotten everything fitted and set up, I had everyone come in and put up a bunch of the art we’d done while we were at the house. Most of it’s still up in the bar,” he says with a fond smile. “And now, I don’t have nearly as much traffic through here. There’s a safe place for my queers to be, I can still check up on my regulars, and I get some peace and quiet at home.” 

Yennefer nods, then looks down at her bowl to cut apart a strawberry. “You said queers… Is your bar not just for men?” She gives him an inquisitive look, spooning the strawberry up with some whipped cream. 

“Heavens no,” Jaskier flaps his hand dismissively. “That’s primarily who shows up, but I have different theme nights for different parts of the community every month. Dyke nights, Trans nights, Ace nights… Leather night,” he chuckles, “is usually a blast.” 

Yennefer’s eyebrows go up, not sure how to even start with this. A smile twitches at the corner of her mouth, as she imagines Geralt in the middle of a leather night at a gay bar. He’d probably be mortified at first, but she has a feeling he would enjoy it more than he’d outwardly let on. She breaks out slowly into a smile, which she hides in her coffee cup. 

“When you said that you check up on your regulars… what did you mean by that?” she queries, studying him carefully. 

Jaskier turns to face her, finished fiddling with his tea until the water has boiled. “I mostly have a feel for who is friends with who around here…” he explains. “At least among the people who come to my bar. The city isn’t that large. When someone doesn’t show up, or doesn’t seem to be doing well, I know who to send to check on them.” Blue eyes meet hers seriously, his gaze steady for what feels like the first time since she’s met him. “I don’t like watching people drop on my watch anymore. I’d rather die than let another queer rot or fall into homelessness because there wasn’t a family there to catch them.” 

Yennefer tips her head to the side. While she’s still angry about the potential heartbreak he might have caused Geralt by having shitty boundaries, she’s beginning to understand what drives him to do things like take strangers home. The kind of pain he had experienced did odd things to people, and they each coped in different ways. In his case, it seemed to have come out as a ferocious kindness. 

“Do you find them if they don’t have friends?” She queries, eyeing him speculatively. 

“That… “ he pauses, picking his words carefully, aware of the intensity of her scrutiny. “Depends. I don’t hunt down every stranger who passes through, but if it’s someone who’s been coming long enough to form a personal relationship with me? Maybe, sometimes. We had an older patron, Deirdre. Wonderful old queen from the days before being trans was really a thing. She came every Tuesday night for… oh, six years? Seven? She’d sit by the front door near me out on the sidewalk and smoke cigarette after cigarette, and we’d talk for hours. When she stopped coming, I went to check on her. Found her passed away in her armchair, poor dear, and the neighbors hadn’t bothered to call anyone. Mail was spilling out of her mailbox.” His lip curls with frustration and sorrow. 

“But, that kind of situation is thankfully rare. I can think of only a handful of times when I’ve felt the need to go to someone’s home. I mostly work through the grapevine,” he explains with a wistful smile. “I may be impulsive, but I do have boundaries, believe it or not. I am… very sorry I gave you such a bad impression.” Holding his hand up to forestall her speaking, he says, “Admittedly a well-deserved one. I’m not twenty anymore, I’m old enough to know better. My therapist is going to have a field day.” 

Yennefer smirks, and this time a twinkle reaches her eyes. He may be an idiot, but she is gratified to see that he has at least a glimmer of self-awareness. There’s a therapist, too. Good. He has someone to hold him accountable. It makes her feel better about the prospect of giving the hotel phone number to him. “And how old are you, that you ought to know better?”

“Thirty-four. Had a birthday about a month and a half ago, May 22nd.” He smiles and gives a little flourish. “I’m a Gemini.” 

Yennefer rolls her eyes. Of course he would be into astrology. She was going to have to have a talk with Geralt about his taste in men, again. She finishes her fruit and pushes her bowl aside, feeling satisfied. “Well. I can see that you’re not as thoughtless as I was worried you were, at least.” 

Jaskier puffs and shakes his head, not sure how to respond to that. He settles on a cautious, “Thank you?”

Yennefer snorts softly. “That being said, there’s some things I want you to understand about Geralt before we move forward. The most important is that he’s never let himself date or fall in love. He’s spent his whole adult life in the military, and he’s never given himself the chance. Were you aware?”

Jaskier looks at her, a sad look crossing his face. “He told me he’d spent his life in the service but I hadn’t quite put it together-” He breaks off and starts again. “I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

“You’re right, you should have,” she reproofs sharply, but then her voice softens. “But in this case, I don’t think he would have told you even if you had asked. So I’ll give you a pass,” she quirks a little smile at him. “This time.” 

Jaskier smiles awkwardly, relieved, then turns around and turns off the kettle as it whistles. “Can I get you anything?”

“No thank you,” Yennefer says. Then she shifts and catches Jaskier’s eye. “When I say he’s never had a boyfriend, Jaskier, I mean it. If you don’t step carefully with him, I will personally end you. He’s likely to get very attached to you if you let him.” She leans forward, her face very serious. “If you cheat on him, it will crush him. I want you to think very carefully about whether or not you can handle a commitment like that. You and I both know he is in a world of pain right now. Aside from my daughter there is no one more precious in the world to me, and I want him to be safe. Please don’t make things worse by being irresponsible with his very fragile heart.” 

Jaskier takes this in quietly, regarding Yennefer with a serious expression of his own. He chews his lip, then nods. Turning slowly aside, he fills the little teapot with hot water, pouring it through the strainer full of flowers. The weight of her words presses on him, making him feel small and inadequate in the face of them. 

“Do you want me to date him?” He asks finally, after a long moment of staring at the dried flowers floating to the top and unfolding in the strainer, not entirely sure he wants the answer. The last day had been a wild ride, and he was starting to get heartsore trying to deal with all of it.

Yennefer pauses, frowning a little and leaning her chin on her hand. “Do I personally want you to date him? Doesn’t matter, since you seem to be an idiot, not a predator. What matters is this: He really seems to like you, and I want him to be happy. He gets to choose you if he wants to. Do you still like him after all the shit he pulled?”

Jaskier flushes, turning away to look back at the teapot. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot before he answers. “I’m… angry that he wasn’t more forthcoming, but it’s not like I asked, either. I definitely brought it on myself.” Licking his lips, he fiddles with the strainer. “But despite that… can I be honest with you?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want an honest answer,” she gives him an amused look. He chuckles and shakes his head. 

“Forgive me, darling. I’m feeling a little out of my depth right now. I usually don’t have a long conversation with the wife, you know? I’m still trying to wrap my head around… uh, what’s happening here.” 

Yennefer chuckles, her eyes twinkling. “This is only the tip of it. But you haven’t answered my question yet.”

His throat bobs visibly as he swallows, his flush deepening. “Right. Well.” He pulls the strainer out too early, leaving himself with weak tea. Stopping as he realizes this, he sinks it back into the pot with a shake of his head and turns around, forcing himself to leave it be. This puts him facing Yennefer, which isn’t much better, but at least it gives him fewer things to make messes with as he loses his composure. “I ah, very much do like him still. Yes.” 

Yennefer smirks, pleased that she can fluster him. As long as he knew who was boss, then as far as she was concerned, he’d probably do fine. 

“Good. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know that.” She folds her fingers under her chin, contemplating the uneasy looking man before her. “The other thing I want you to know is that I won’t be going anywhere if you decide to date him. You will  _ always _ have me to deal with; I married him, he is my husband, he is the father of my child. I expect you to respect that. Are we clear?”

Jaskier feels as if someone has poured ice water down the back of his shirt. He’s been in polyamorous arrangements before, but never with someone so fucking intimidating. “As crystal,” he replies weakly. “I wouldn’t imagine getting between you and him, not for a minute.” After all, he didn’t have a death wish. 

“Well then,” she says, pulling a hotel business card out of her purse and writing a number in a neat hand on the back. “As long as that’s understood, here’s the hotel phone number. Take a few days to think about it. If you really want to see him… That’s up to you. But if you do? Do him the courtesy of having a real talk with him. And if things work out? Take him out on a date. Treat him the way he  _ should _ be treated. He deserves that. If you don’t, please remember that I am more than happy to bury your dead body.” She smiles sweetly and extends the card to him. He takes it delicately from her, looks the number over, and then tucks the card into the breast pocket over his heart. 

“He does deserve a real date,” Jaskier agrees nervously, feeling caught between the hope and guilt and confusion all swarming around inside of him. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.” He feels like his face is burning, and he knows from her smile that she can see how uncomfortable he is. 

“Now. The last thing I need for now is his backpack. It has things he needs in it, and I’d like to make sure they’re there for him when he wakes up.” She says with an air of finality, standing. “Can you please get it for me?” 

“Of course,” he says, pushing off of the counter, glad to have something to do to break the tension of the moment. “Just a minute.” He retreats to the bedroom and there is the sound of dragging and rummaging. A moment later he emerges with a set of keys. 

“Come with me?” he offers, gesturing with his head towards the door. She rises and nods, following him out the front door and up the staircase to the loft. He unlocks the door for her and steps aside, allowing her past him into the quiet room. It’s starting to get hot as the mid-morning sunshine radiates through the round window in the eaves, but unlike the outside, the inside hasn’t yet turned unpleasant. 

Yennefer steps carefully into the loft, looking around. It’s a peaceful, neat little space, mostly unruffled except for Geralt’s boxes piled neatly against the back walls. His backpack still sits at the foot of the bed. She retrieves it, brushes her fingers fondly over the box labeled ‘Correspondence’ on her way back, and meets Jaskier at the door. 

“Thank you,” she states, sounding firm but sincere. She, at least, feels more settled now about getting out of Geralt’s way. Some things about the situation still don’t feel right to her, but she’s no longer on red alert. It’s enough to be moving on with, at least.

Jaskier nods. “Of course. I’ll see you soon, Yennefer.” He fidgets awkwardly, then says, “Thank you, too. For leveling with me.”

She smirks. “Get used to it.” She says dryly, then turns and heads down the stairs to her car without further comment. He stands at the top and watches her go, fiddling with the keys between his fingers, at a loss for words. 

_ The quiet little library near the MWR was almost deserted at this time of day. It never saw heavy traffic at any time, but right after evening mess most men had more interesting things to do than hit the books. Coën pushed his way into the library curiously, looking around from side to side. At first, aside from the librarian, there was no one to be seen. Then, as he rounded one of the stacks, the tan metal shelving opened out into a little seating area with some battered gold and cream yellow velvet plush chairs and a little work table in the middle of the space. Seated in one of the chairs was Geralt, holding a book in one hand, his expression serious as he read it.  _

_ Coën smiled with pleasure. He’d been noticing the big man vanish after evening mess for weeks now, but this was the first time he’d had a good opportunity to follow him and find out what he got up to after hours. Most of the men on base scattered for the MWR or the smoke pit, but he’d never seen him in either of those spots. The only place he’d ever seen Geralt spend much free time was the track; he had a tendency to run when he wasn’t otherwise occupied. He didn’t run after dinner though; cracking where he went was something Coën had been meaning to do. Pleased, he walked out from behind the shelf.  _

_ Geralt oriented to the movement immediately, half-closing his book and switching the intensity of his gaze onto Coën. The force of it hit Coën like a blow to the chest and he stopped, stuffing his hands into his pockets. In addition to being their liaison on base and in the field, Geralt also commanded his own men. Coën had heard he had a fearsome reputation. While he hadn’t yet been able to see why, the look the man was giving him right now gave an inkling of what they might have been talking about. Around Yennefer, the young lieutenant was often awkward and caught on his left foot (although to be fair, most people were; she preferred it that way,) but here alone, he had a quiet, powerful presence that gave Coën pause. _

_ “Hey, man,” he said with a friendly smile, pitching his voice low in the silent library. “Finally found you. How’s it going?” _

_ Geralt gave him a wooden look, then closed his eyes as if summoning strength to deal with this intrusion into his personal space. Coën, usually confident and easygoing, shifted awkwardly. When Geralt opened his eyes again, he marked the book carefully and set it aside.  _

_ “What do you want.” He asked flatly. The full bore of his attention on Coën was vaguely uncomfortable, but Coën wasn’t about to be deterred. He was used to Yennefer, after all.  _

_ “I wanted to talk, man. Get to know you a little. We work together all the time, why not?” He fixed Geralt with a charming, lopsided grin, leaning his shoulder lightly on the shelf next to him.  _

_ Geralt took this in, unimpressed. “Where’s Yennefer?” Of all the things that he wanted to deal with right now, being harassed by both of them on his off hours was not it. He eyed Coën skeptically.  _

_ “Off base doing errands, last I checked.” Coën replied easily. “Want to come out for a run with me?” _

_ “No.” _

_ “A drink then? C’mon. On me.” _

_ Geralt hesitated, then grumbled reluctantly. He didn’t want to socialize, but free booze was hard to turn down. “Fine.”  _

_ He picked the book up and stood, unfolding to his full height with an easy grace. From where he was standing he could see the librarian, whose eye he caught. Geralt gave the librarian a short nod before starting out the door. Coën could have sworn he caught a slight smile between the two of them, so quick he wasn’t entirely sure he saw it, but then Geralt was pushing past him and he was turning to follow. The little moment popped like a soap bubble and faded from Coën’s notice, forgotten, as he followed the big man out the door.  _

_ When they arrived at the bar Geralt walked in without comment, leaving Coën to follow him. At this time of day the space was warm and full of the smell of good food, dotted with patrons chatting over drinks and baskets of falafels. Geralt leaned his elbows on the bar and greeted the owner in Hebrew as Coën came into hearing range. The man shook his head, corrected him, and Geralt tried again, this time holding up two fingers. The dark-haired man smiled and nodded this time, then looked up and waved to Coën as he approached.  _

_ Geralt turned as Coën neared and slapped Coën’s shoulder, just a little too hard to be entirely companionable. “He’s paying.”  _

_ Coën grinned, unperturbed, and slid into the bar seat next to where Geralt was standing. “Give me a basket of those falafels, too. They smell fantastic,” he said.  _

_ “You got it,” the bartender replied, placing a beer and a shot of arak in front of each of them. Coën nodded his thanks and grabbed the arak first, downing it, welcoming the burn. Geralt did the same, tossing it back in one go. The liquor was strong, having the tendency to punch the drinker in the sinuses with a sharp hit of vaporized alcohol and aniseed. They both shook their heads to clear the burn, then took large swallows of beer to wash it back. Blinking their watering eyes, they turned to look at one another, considering one another in the quiet near the front of the bar.  _

_ “Why are you bothering me?” Geralt asked him bluntly. “Don’t you have something better to do on your off hours?” _

_ “I’m buying you food and booze, I’d hardly call that bothering you,” Coën replied dryly. Geralt quirked the tiniest of smiles and turned away, shrugging. His eyes tracked as the bartender brought the falafels back to them. Coën grabbed them and jerked his head. “Let’s grab a table.”  _

_ “Fine.” Geralt said, eyeing his back with a little frown as he followed him across the bar. Coën was a little shorter than Geralt, although he was by no means a small man, with a leanly muscled frame and a confident posture. He wore a brown shirt and fatigues, though his press pass was now stuffed safely away, no longer needed off base. When he turned and sat, Geralt sank into the seat across from him. His face was plain but friendly, with terrible pockmark scarring from some sort of accident or illness. He grew a short beard over it, neatly trimmed, which slightly eased the effect of the scarring. His eyes were a little unsettling, a pale yellow green like a cat’s eyes, the whites riddled with red streaks from some sort of old injury. _

_ “What happened to your face?” Geralt asked, setting his beer on the table. _

_ “Boy, you just jump right to it, don’t you, big guy?” Coën replied affably. “That’s none of your goddamn business. But since you’re asking, it happened while I was over in ‘Nam. Got me a medical discharge out of it, and fuck all else.” He shrugged and waved his hand, indicating Geralt’s body and face. “What’s with the whole… pale, spooky thing?” A grin played over his face as he saw Geralt sit back. The young soldier’s expression changed quickly from offense to understanding as he caught on that he was being mildly rebuffed for his rudeness.  _

_ “It’s genetic,” he explained with a little grimace. “And if you’re about to call me Casper, save your breath. I’ve heard all of it before.” _

_ Coën’s grin widened. He took a big swallow of his beer and then leaned towards Geralt. “I was about to ask if your mother fucked a snowman, but I guess we’ve got that all covered,” he teased. Geralt pulled a face at him, wavering between offense and laughter. Coën popped a falafel into his mouth, still smiling, then pushed the basket towards the middle of the table towards Geralt.  _

_ “So tell me about yourself. What’s with the library thing?” _

_ “What’s with the disturbing my reading thing?” Geralt grumbled back at him, but he took a falafel and bit into it. Coën waited, still unperturbed, and after a moment Geralt said, “I like it because it’s quiet. I get a chance to catch up on my reading after dinner when no one’s there.”  _

_ “What were you reading about?” Coën asked, then drained his beer. “Want another round?” Geralt nodded cautiously, draining his own beer and setting the empty glass aside. Coën nabbed it and brought it back to the bar, returning a moment later with full glasses and another round of arak.  _

_ They pounded the shots back as Coën sat, then Geralt replied. “Hebrew. I’m trying to get fluent.” He gave Coën an uneasy look. “Why?” _

_ “Just curious,” Coën shrugged comfortably. “I prefer fantasy. Love me some  _ Lord of the Rings _.”  _

_ “Oh,” Geralt said, sounding a little surprised. He wasn’t used to people actually engaging in conversation with him about books. “Why?” _

_ “I don’t know man,” Coën said, waving his hand. “Swords? Dwarves? Elves? It’s a fun escape, I guess.” _

_ Geralt smiled slightly, nodded, nabbed another falafel. “What do you usually do on your off time?” _

_ “What, when I’m not with Yennefer?” Geralt nodded, and Coën stretched in his chair, pondering. “Physical training. Fuck. Read,” he tipped his beer at Geralt in a friendly gesture, “Play cards, if there’s a game on. Harass people who don’t want to be bothered,” he said with another grin.  _

_ This time Geralt snorted into his beer, nodding. “Ok. Fine. Where are you from?”  _

_ Coën leaned comfortably in his chair and swiped another falafel. “Michigan. You?” _

_ “Poland,” he replied, tossing his beer back. “My parents were stationed out there when I was born.”  _

_ “Poland, huh? How’d you end up back in the States?” _

_ “Military school. It’s a long story.” Geralt shrugged, his face closing off, and he changed the subject. “How’d you meet Yennefer?” _

_ “Mm.” Coën eyed Geralt curiously, but let the subject drop. “I met her when I was over in ‘Nam. Saw her burn through a bunch of my COs like they were cheap paper and I thought, I have to know this woman.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “She wasn’t easy to get to know, but,” he shrugged. “I’m charming.” _

_ Geralt shook his head, smiling slightly as he bit into a falafel.  _

_ “Then… after a series of long stories I’m not gonna get into, she ended up out in the field with my unit, which was fucking insane given what was going on out there. Long story short, she saved my ass. I’m pretty much ride or die now.”  _

_ Geralt nodded thoughtfully, then stood, as if coming to a conclusion. “I’ll buy this round.” _

_ “Sounds good, man.”  _

_ When he returned, he passed Coën his drinks and sat down. This time, with the drinks, Geralt offered him a smile. _

_ Hours later, when they staggered out of the bar together, their arms were wrapped around one another’s shoulders. _

In the parking lot of the mall, Yennefer pulls into the parking space and pulls the emergency break. Now that she is done talking with Jaskier, she wants to check in with Coën, finally update him, make sure that everything is okay with him and Ciri. She pulls out a big, blocky cell phone and dials a number. It only rings twice before someone on the other end picks up. She turns the blowers down as a man’s voice answers the phone. 

“Hello?”

“It’s Yenna, Coën. I found Geralt, he’s safe. How are you and Ciri doing?” Her voice is quiet but carries clearly across the phone line. 

“Yenna,” the man, Coën, replies with relief. “It’s good to hear from you. I actually just got her down for a rest.” Yennefer can hear a small shuffling sound as he shifts the phone to his other ear, then settling sounds. “She had a helluva meltdown a little while ago.”

“Is she sleeping?”

“As far as I know, yes. Last time I looked in on her she was out.” He sounds tired, but his voice is steady, calm. “It was a bad one. She’s not hurt, but I just finished sweeping up the last of her lunch plate off the floor.” 

Yennefer sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose lightly. “Do you know what caused it?”

“I don’t think there was any one thing this time. She misses you, she’s scared about her dad being gone, her routine’s thrown off. This time the thing that kindled it off was the water from her steamed broccoli touching her ketchup, but…” He sighs, and she can hear fabric shifting, probably a shrug. “As you know, that usually doesn’t set her off like this.” She can hear another shuffle as he shifts. 

“She’d been asking about you a lot since you didn't call yesterday morning, even though we both told her you’d be missing a day… which got me thinking it’s more about missing you than the fucking ketchup. She’ll be ok, but I’m glad you called. You said you’ve finally found Geralt?” A note of worry enters his easygoing voice, and she can almost see the look of concern on his pockmarked face. 

“I found him, Coën.” She confirms. “He’s safe in my hotel room right now. I found him with a man.” A frustrated sigh bursts out from her. “I can’t believe him. This is how he got tossed out of the Army, and the second he hits civilian soil he’s in someone else’s pants. This isn’t like him.”

“He what?” On the other end of the line, Coën bursts into laughter. “Oh man, good for him! He deserves a little happy. What the fuck happened to him, anyway? Last I heard you hadn’t been able to get any details about the damn discharge, I’ve been worried sick.”

“We all have. I still am. He’s in a bad way.” And with that, she relates the events of the past day to her friend, filling him in on the details of Geralt’s discharge, how dangerous his depression has become, and the circumstances under which she found him. Coën listens patiently, stopping her only rarely to ask a clarifying question. She winds up by detailing everything she’s learned about Jaskier, ending on an amused note. “So, that situation is totally barmy. Trust Geralt to find the most impulsive man in Rhode Island… I really hope he’s going to be ok. I know I don’t get much say in this, but it worries me.” 

On the other end of the line, she can hear another soft rustle as Coën shifts and re-settles himself while he mulls this over. “I don’t know, Yenna… it sounds like it’s not the worst situation I’ve ever heard of.” 

“Coën-”

“Stop. Listen. I get why you’re upset. The guy sounds like he’s a little fuckin’ foolish, but when has Geralt gone in for anything else?” 

“Coën!” she exclaims, insulted. “Excuse me?”

“Except for you, sweetie. You know I never mean you. But Eskel? He’s never had all his screws tightened down and you know it. At least this guy seems genuinely interested in him.” 

Yennefer sighs and nods. “You’re right. Whatever else is happening, his idiot really does seem to like him,” she admits. 

“That’s good,” Coën chuckles. Then he asks, “Hey, what the fuck is he wearing? All of his stuff is here! Oh… Yenna, don’t tell me he’s in his old clothes from storage…” 

Yennefer slowly grins. “He is. Spares from his twenties, too.” 

On the other end of the line, Coën bursts out in quiet laughter. “Do they even fit?”

“Depends on how you define ‘fit’,” she replies dryly. “They’re a bit tight across the shoulders now.” 

“Oh man, and he’s just walking around wearing that? You’ve got to be kidding me. I ain’t gonna be able to mail his clothes overseas fast enough to rescue that disaster, you have  _ got _ to get him new clothes.”

She laughs, shaking her head. “You’re not wrong… I’m already on it. I’m actually about to go pick him up a few things, I just thought I'd call you first.” she says, then trails off. The smile falls from her face. 

“Coën, this feels crazy. I know I already agreed that we’d stay and work it out but… Between you and me, I just want him home safe. I don’t know if I’m making the right choice staying here.”

She can hear another rustle, and when he speaks, Coën’s voice is serious and quiet, muffled to avoid waking Ciri. “I get that. I really do. But… What do you honestly think is going to happen if we put him on a plane and force him back to London? He’ll hate you, for a start. We can’t strongarm another bar owner into giving him a job with his special interest, either, and I don’t think he’ll make it if he doesn’t have something to do. Not the way you’re talking about him right now. That scares the shit out of me.” He sighs, and then speaks again, barely audible now. “Besides, Ciri needs her dad to be happy. You know what will happen if we put them together right now before he’s stable.”

Yennefer feels her stomach plunge as Coën points that out, pressing her lips together. Reluctantly, she nods. “You’re not wrong about that. I bloody fucking wish you were, but…” 

Coën hums softly in agreement on the other end of the line. “Listen.” He says, after a long moment of worried silence. “I know you’re nervous, but take the crappy impulse sex out of the picture for a minute and look again. He’s met a man who likes him a lot. He’s so into him that he  _ finally  _ admitted to you that he’s  _ gay. _ That’s like, moving fucking mountains material. And you know how much he loves mixing drinks, it’s like an illness. I fucking hate when he starts talking about it because he won’t fucking shut up. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet, but-”

“It’s fucking exhausting,” she agrees with a laugh. “You’re right, this job offer is right up his alley. If he’d come to it a little more honestly, I’d probably be thrilled for him…” She hesitates, then adds, “About all of it. He really likes Julian. He  _ blushes _ when he talks about him.”

“Oh ho ho ho!” Coën crows quietly. “You’re kidding me! Mr. My Face is Carved Out of Granite Rivii,  _ blushing? _ That I have to see for myself.” Yennefer laughs again, feeling deeply held tension in her chest and stomach begin to ease. 

“It’s quite the sight,” she admits with a smile. “It’s nice to see.”

“I bet. So it sounds like you’re not going to be home anytime soon.”

“Probably not.”

“What do you want me to tell Ciri?”

Yennefer sits back in her seat heavily and sighs, then flips down the sun visor so that she can open the mirror on the back of it and inspect her makeup as she thinks. The process grounds her, bringing her back to her center. She carefully sweeps a finger under one eye, corralling a minute smudge of eyeliner before she responds. 

“Tell her that I love her very much, and that I will call her before bed tonight. I will keep up with her morning calls until I figure out what to do… Beyond that, it’s hard to say what next steps should be until I see how this rumpus between Geralt and his idiot takes shape.” She pauses, chewing the inside of her lip.

“What are you thinking about?” Coën asks quietly, voice gentle. 

“I’m thinking about what to do with Ciri. If everything goes well here, I don’t want to just leave Geralt alone and go back to London.”   
  
“So move her. We’ve been all over the world, Yenna. Rhode Island isn’t dangerous, what’s the problem?”

She looks up at the ceiling of the car, huffing and studying the velvety fabric above her. “It feels crazy, is the problem.”

“This whole thing is crazy. Our life is crazy. It’s ok, we know how to land on our feet. Maybe start looking into a month-to-month for you two, you don’t know how long Geralt’s going to need you over there. Maybe start scouting for bigger places in case you decide to move us, too? I’ll get a few things wound up over here, just in case, and… we’ll feel it out, ok? No need to make any big decisions yet. Let’s just make sure Geralt is safe first. Ciri’s safe with me, you can handle yourself, everything else is gonna be fine. Ok?”

Her hand comes up to her chest and presses it as she listens to Coën, trying to ease some of the sudden ache in her heart. As she gets wrapped up in the calm safety of his voice, it finally occurs to her just how emotionally exhausted she is. She takes a moment to sit with it, breathing slowly until the worst of the ache has passed and she is thinking clearly again. Coën waits patiently on the other end of the line, his own breath quiet and steady in her ear.

“I still don’t like it.” 

Coën laughs, muffling his chuckle so as not to wake Ciri. “I know, sweetie. You wouldn’t be you if you did. You were never gonna like any boyfriend of Geralt’s, it’s not in your nature... That’s ok. Give it time. Go get ‘im, sweetie, that little twink isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

She breaks out in a sudden laugh at that, pleased. “He already doesn’t. I’ve got that boy properly terrified.”

“Good. Keep the little fucker in line until I can meet him,” Coën says warmly. “I’ll beat him up for both of you if he doesn’t do right by our boy.” 

“Thank you,” she replies with a smile. “I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I know. Give Ciri a hug for me?”

“You got it. Anything else before I go?”

She hesitates, then grins mischievously. “The bar has leather nights.” 

“Oh, Geralt is going to die,” Coën giggles quietly, still trying to muffle himself. “Oh lord, thank you for telling me that. That’ll do.”

“You’re welcome. Talk to you soon.”

“Yup. Give Geralt a hug for me when you get back to him.”

“I will,” she promises. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.” 

She ends the call and drops the phone back into her purse, sighing heavily. She feels more grounded now, but the weight of the situation sits heavily on her heart. Like no matter where she turns, something unpredictable looms, out of her control. Closing her eyes and leaning back in her seat, she gives herself a long, slow moment to gather her thoughts. The conversation with Coën was calming, and she feels much clearer now. Once she is gathered, she gets out of the car and shuts the door firmly. Now that was all settled, it was time to get Geralt some clothes. 

~*~

When she arrives back at the hotel room some time later, Geralt is just starting to stir. He is lying there blinking in the dimness of the hotel room, feeling like he is being crushed under a ton of bricks, when he hears the click of the magnetic key card sliding in the lock. Sitting up on his elbow, he watches as Yennefer pushes through the door with a bag on her elbow and his backpack slung over her shoulder. Oh, crap. That’s right, she’d gone  _ shopping _ for him. Despite the fact that he’s grateful he didn’t have to go to the store himself, he still feels apprehension about the prospect of a whole new set of clothing. Groaning, he flops back against his pillow and scrubs his hand over his stubbly face. 

Yennefer smiles as she watches him do this, setting the bag down on the little round table. “I have more in the car,  _ kochany _ .” She gestures to the little counter with the mini fridge and coffee maker, where a bag of ground coffee sits waiting for him. “I bought some decent coffee in case I found you _. _ Why don’t you get that started?” Geralt grumps out a muffled noise from behind his hand, not moving.

She walks over and deposits the backpack next to his side of the bed. “Got your razor.” Leaning over, she plucks his hand off of his face and kisses his forehead, then his lips, light and sweet, and is rewarded with a little flicker of a smile. 

“Thank you,  _ neshama shelì. _ ” Geralt rumbles softly, his voice still thick with sleep. “How did everything go?”

“Well… I still don’t entirely get what you see in him,” she teases gently, sitting next to him on the bed, forcing him to scoot slightly to the side to make room for her. “But. We had a long talk, and I have a better feel for who he is as a person.” She trails her fingers lightly along his arm, affectionate. 

“And?” Geralt asks, tilting his head and eyeing her with guarded curiosity in the dimness. 

“And,” she sighs and smiles, patting his chest. “I suppose I can see something of what you see in him. He’s a pillock, and he’s too impulsive for my liking, but he’s also… kind. Soft. Generous. More thoughtful than I gave him credit for. So,” she says, turning to smile down at him, “I left him with the hotel room’s number. The ball’s in his court now,  _ kochany. _ We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Geralt looks back up at her, his face unreadable in the dim half-light of the hotel room. He nods, his eyes sliding closed, still groggy and emotionally hungover after the day previous. Yennefer pats his chest gently one last time and then says, “I also talked to Coën. He and Ciri are doing well, and he’s glad that you are okay. He told me to hug you for him.” And with that she leans over, giving him a gentle squeeze. He huffs out a noise of mild protest, but deep down he enjoys the hug. She smirks as she rises. “I’ll be back with the rest of the bags in just a minute. I’ll fill you in about the rest over breakfast.” 

He grunts a sleepy noise of acknowledgement, waiting until she leaves to slowly rise. Every movement causes his body to burn with exhausted pain. All of the raw sadness and grief that he’d been staving off for weeks has collapsed in on him, and he can barely breathe under it. Grumbling softly, he sets up the coffee maker, pulls his shaving things and his dog tags out of his bag, and limps into the bathroom for a shower. 

By the time he is out, he can hear Yennefer moving around in the room outside the door. He uses a towel to swipe the mirror clear. This time he doesn’t even try to meet his own eyes. Instead, he sets about the shaving routine that he’s done nearly every day of his adult life, the same way every time. It is unspeakably grounding to feel the cold pattern of strokes across his skin as the razor cuts away the night’s stubble.

When his skin is finally smooth for the first time in weeks, it feels like a weight has fallen off of him. He sighs deeply in contentment as he washes the remaining soap off of his face and rubs his hand gently over his cheeks. Then, he turns to his dog tags. There on the chain is his wedding band, a plain gold ring. 

Yennefer had put it on him a long time ago, and it is one of his most treasured possessions. It had never felt right to hide it, but he’d been so certain that he didn’t deserve them anymore. That they would reject him. Now that he knows differently, it is a relief to see it again. It has always been an honor to wear. 

Gently, he removes it and puts it back on his ring finger. When he emerges from the bathroom, Yennefer can see the difference in him. Her eyes flicker to the ring and back, and she gives him a little smile. That was a good sign, she knew. It meant he felt connected enough to his family to wear it. 

“Better?” She asks, watching him walk out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. 

“Better,” he agrees, fingering his chin. 

“Good.” She smiles. “There’s fresh clothes on the bed for you.” With a tip of her head, she indicates the jeans, dark blue button down, undershirt, underwear, belt, and socks that she’s laid out on Geralt’s side of the bed. 

“Thanks,” he squints, eyeing them distrustfully. 

“Just try them, Geralt, they won’t bite,” Yennefer suggests wryly, taking another pair of jeans out of a bag and clipping the tags off of them. “You’ll have to get used to wearing them someday, might as well start now.” 

“Hmm.” He grunts, casting her a look of very mild irritation. She smiles back at him, he rolls his eyes, then capitulates and heads over to inspect the new clothing for himself. It’s simple, sturdy, well-made. When he picks up the shirt, it’s surprisingly soft. He shoots a glance at Yennefer, who gives him a ‘See? Told you to trust me,’ look in return. 

Grumbling softly, caught somewhere between feeling annoyed and loved, he puts the shirt on. He discovers that the underwear is comfortable, too. To his surprise, even the socks are pleasant, dress socks with fine seams that don’t bother his feet when he puts them on. The jeans are a little stiff, but they’re new and that can’t be helped. The clean clothing feels nice, as does the fact that it fits a great deal better than his old clothing did. He walks over to the mirrors paneling the little closet door in the corner of the room and eyes himself uncomfortably. 

“What do you think?” Yennefer asks from across the room, an amused note lilting her voice. 

“I hate it,” Geralt gripes, only half serious. He tugs at the shirt and grimaces at his reflection. The outfit feels surprisingly nice on his skin, and deep down, he knows he’ll get accustomed to it quickly. 

“Liar,” Yen chuckles warmly, setting aside a wine-red shirt in a small pile of other clothing. 

“Hmm.” Geralt hums, walking over to the little counter to get himself a cup of coffee. Then he turns around and leans against it, eyeing Yen and her bags skeptically. 

“I know I need clothes, Yen, but really?” He complains, as he watches her pull out a deep purple shirt and clip its tags, adding to the pile. 

“Really,” she says firmly. “You’ll feel better if you look presentable, Geralt. Especially at that new job of yours, if you decide to take it.” She glances up at him, a twinkle in her eye. Then she gestures at a shirt on top of the pile of work clothing she’s set aside for him.

He gives her a wide-eyed look, then walks over and tentatively picks up the shirt that she’d indicated. It is just a black button down shirt, nothing fancy. But it is more than that, too. It is a silent statement of support from her, and as such, it means the world to him. 

She smiles to herself, setting aside the empty bag in her lap. “Want to go get breakfast somewhere,  _ moj drogì _ ?” She asks. “I saw a few places nearby that looked good.” He glances up from his coffee warily. To be perfectly honest, all he wanted to do was sleep, but he was all slept out, so after a moment of hesitation he nods. 

“Good. Once I’m done here we’ll leave.” 

He nods again, downing his coffee and pouring himself another cup. Then he walks over quietly behind her back and leans down, kissing the top of her head. 

“Thank you for the clothes, Yen.”

“You’re welcome.” She replies warmly, leaning back into his stomach. Her violet eyes peer up from underneath her lashes, a slow smile lighting her face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He takes a sip of coffee, holding her head and gently savoring her curls with his fingertips. They both close their eyes, soaking up the warmth of being together. It might not be a usual sort of love, but it was theirs, and neither would have traded it for the world. 


	10. Glass Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, a lot is revealed but only a little bit happens. Geralt has been disassociating, and he is slowly coming up for air. Certain truths are revealed about him, his family, and his past. We also meet Eskel for the first time. WARNING: Mildly graphic homophobia, child abuse, and homophobic child abuse. 
> 
> Author's Note: Please keep in mind before reading this chapter that the author (me!) is autistic. Any feelings/opinions about autism are purely my own and not meant to be a comment on the community as a whole. I have done my best to be factual and accurate, per my own personal experience.

Geralt hits the blue mat with a violent thud, a whuff of air escaping his lungs. Yennefer stands over him triumphantly with her violet eyes glittering. He blinks, shaking off his disorientation and regaining his bearings. Out of the corner of his eye he watches her legs, using his vantage point to conceal his scrutiny as he carefully calculates. Then, with a sudden movement, he grabs at the back of her calf. She slips out of the way and kicks him in the ribs as she goes by, just hard enough to be felt. Grunting, he rolls away from the kick. Then he jumps to his feet and begins to playfully stalk her again. 

The hotel’s gym is open 24 hours, and at this time of night it is deserted. As they circle on the blue mat in the back of the room it is possible to see treadmills, weights, bikes, and a large red exercise ball arranged neatly nearby. 

Luckily, the laundry room had been deserted as well. A little earlier, a puppy fight had broken out between Geralt and Yennefer up in their hotel room. After hitting a lamp, they had decided to be proper adults and go down to the gym to settle the score. On their way, they had tossed his new clothes into the washer. 

Counting the last time Geralt had hit the mat, Yennefer had taken him down four times to his one, and he was finally starting to break a sweat in the air-conditioned room.

“Getting slow, old man!” Yennefer crows, dodging in towards him. He grabs the back of her neck and tries to force her down, but she brings up her arm and blocks his other hand from getting a grip, careful to be gentle with his healing bones. Then she shoves into him, setting her feet rock-solid into the floor. While Yennefer is tiny compared to Geralt, her body is strong and sure, and she knows how to use it. 

Geralt growls and shoves harder, making the mistake of leaning just too far off of his center of gravity. Yennefer suddenly drops, diving up under his arm and spinning behind him. This time he manages to avoid her grab for his neck by just a hair, twisting away and righting himself. Then, as she is recovering her balance, he ducks down. Using his long arms to his advantage, he makes a quick grab. Geralt lands a grip on her heel as Yennefer dodges away, and this time he yanks her leg up and brings her crashing down to the mat.

“You’re older than me.” He points out with a wicked grin, ducking out of the way as her other foot comes flying at his head. She uses the shift in his gravity to slip away from him, kicking off of the arm holding her and springing upright. He bounces upright with her, just a moment too slow to get his arms in place.

“Yes, but _I_ have clearly been putting in more hours on the mat,” she retorts primly, then lands a spinning kick high on his chest that knocks the breath out of him. “Amazing what exercise will do. I’ve been up and moving instead of laying around getting head.” 

Geralt grunts at the impact, staggers, shakes it off, and squares up with her. “You wouldn’t let someone suck your dick even if you had one, Yen,” he observes with a teasing smirk, circling her again. 

“I could if I wanted to,” Yennefer replies archly, feinting towards him and then ducking the other way, trying to land a playful blow on his ribs. Geralt swiftly dodges, light on his feet, and grabs her hand. With a smart yank he pulls her off balance and steps behind her. With his arm wrapped around her waist he bears her carefully but quickly to the floor, pinning her beneath his bulk. She squirms, cursing. 

“Had enough?” He grins crookedly against her ear. 

“You wish,” she pants, worming her legs free. She twists suddenly and slips out from under him, rolling rapidly away out of his reach. Growling, Geralt follows her up. Yennefer grins wildly and taunts him, beckoning ‘come at me’, and he’s just annoyed enough to fall for it. 

When he grabs for her she tries to pull him off balance again, but this time he’s ready. He drops his center of gravity low and plants himself in a solid stance, and Yennefer suddenly feels like she’s trying to uproot a big oak tree. As she loses her own center for just a fraction of a second, Geralt seizes his moment. Yanking his arm back with her still attached, he puts his hand on the back of her neck and swiftly steps around her, bearing her to the ground again. Yennefer goes down with a grunt and immediately elbows his ribs. 

“Wanker!” She laughs breathlessly.

“Every night before bed.” Geralt snarks, eliciting a cry of mock disgust from Yennefer. 

“Oh gross! I don’t want to hear about your dick!”

“You’re the one who brought it up,” he chuckles wickedly, dodging out of the way of another flying elbow. Then he very carefully lets Yennefer up, springing back out of her reach. As she gets back to her feet, laughing, Geralt takes a quick moment to wipe the sweat off of his face with his shirt. His hand aches from the exertion, but he and Yen have been careful with it and it’s still in good shape. 

Yennefer looks at the clock, then back at him. “Lucky for you, it looks like your utter destruction is going to have to wait until after the laundry is changed over.” She walks across the room to towel herself down. “Do you remember where it is from here?” 

“I’ve got it,” Geralt grunts dismissively. “Back in a minute.” She nods and grabs her water bottle as he turns away. He pads quietly over to his new athletic shoes, examining them. They’re similar to what he used during physical training exercises while still enlisted, and they’re easy enough to get on, but he hates the fact that they’re not broken in yet. He flexes his feet as he stands, a stormy expression on his face. The shoes feel like his life now; stiff, uncomfortable, and new.

He walks out into the hallway towards the laundry room, swiping up his water bottle and wallet on the way out. The fluorescent lights of this floor buzz and flicker overhead. They are grindingly loud to his senses, where other people might barely notice them. The bottle is cold and damp in his hands, and the hallway itself is sparse, a long stretch of cream wallpaper and grey triangle patterned carpet. Geralt pauses at a junction, scanning, and spots the sign for the laundry room. Turning the corner, he heads in that direction.

His body crawls with uneasy energy as he walks, making him feel restless and uncomfortable. The last day or so that he’d spent with Yennefer had been good, grounding. He’d had a nice breakfast with her, and she had filled him in on the rest of the conversation she’d had with Jaskier. When they had come back to the hotel they’d had a long nap curled together, and a quiet dinner in the hotel room. After that he’d tried to go back to bed, his body feeling heavy and emotionally depleted. 

Yennefer hadn’t been impressed. They hadn’t loved each other for two decades for nothing, and she could spot a depression nap a mile away. Instead of letting him sink into it, she had followed him into the bed. There she had sat on him, pulling at his face and poking him in ticklish spots until he’d finally broken into an exasperated growl and tackled her to get her off of him. They had rolled around the room like puppies until they bumped into the lamp, almost knocking it over. At that point, by mutual agreement, they had moved downstairs to the gym. 

It had been nice to spar with Yennefer. They had started doing hand to hand combat training together when they were working in the Middle East, and had continued even after Ciri was born. They made sure during Geralt’s short visits home to spend a little time together on the mat. It had been one of the constants in his life. 

Normally, he loved training with his wife. Right now he half-hated it though. The rush and flow of their gentle, playful combat was so familiar and safe that it was dragging him out of his protective fog. Reality felt harsh by comparison. The last few weeks had felt like a distantly remembered dream, like Geralt had been there but hadn’t really been participating in it. Now, as he padded up the hallway, the dam cracked. Memories began trickling in, then they rose in a great flood and swept him away.

When the military police had come for Geralt in his office, it had been a surprise. Five men had come into the room, one of whom had announced he was under arrest. Geralt remembers feeling like he’d been dropped into the cold deep of an ocean, his body going numb with creeping shock. By the time that he’d walked out of his office surrounded on all sides, his memory was already starting to go fuzzy. The intervening days were a blur. 

Three quiet days in a cell, a court martial held swiftly on the third day, and he had been on a plane back to Fort Morhen by around dawn. Geralt hadn’t spoken a word in his own defense. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He’d already broken everything. Somewhere on the flight back to the States he had realized there was no way he could bring himself to call Yennefer or Coën, and had started slipping into a black despair.

On the plane he had slept, trying to avoid overhearing the voices of the soldiers around him. The energy around him had been ugly, but no one had touched him. When he’d gotten into his car, there was another long, smeary blank where memory should be. There was the park with the children dressed in fairy wings, the parade… Jaskier.

That part was like a bright smudge of light across the darkness. Kind eyes, tender hands, and beautiful long limbs. Food. Gentleness. The bar too, wood and darkness and rainbow fairy lights splashed across a backdrop of fuzzy emptiness. Geralt remembered feeling weirdly safe, installed behind the bar. Like he’d fit in someplace, for just a minute, for the first time in his life. It made him ache, because it was something he’d never felt before. He was afraid of it. He longed for more of it.

Being surrounded by queers had been the best and worst part of the whole experience, what little of it Geralt could remember. His whole life had been consumed in one long effort to blend in. Vesemir had been obsessed with his performance as a soldier, tying it closely to his performance as a son. The consequences for failing to please him had always been harsh. 

Geralt had started attending military schools at twelve. There had been other gay boys in school, and later, other men who had served alongside him in the service, most of them hiding in the same misery that he was. It had been desperately isolating, living alongside other men like himself but unable to connect. They’d always felt like they were on the other side of a glass window, like they were in some other world he wasn’t meant to touch. The burning loneliness had caused him to withdraw, but it had never soured him or made him hateful. Deep down, he had a soft spot for queer people and had always looked out for them as best he could.

Inside the bar, Geralt still felt like he was on the other side of a glass window, but what he was seeing was finally _good._ Men in love taking their ease. Women flirting, touching each other’s hands over baskets of fries. Not to mention that he’d seen more genders in one room that night than he’d ever seen in one place. 

Geralt wakes from his reverie for long enough to duck into the laundry room, squinting under the gnawing buzz of the light overhead. This one is flickering badly now. It hadn’t been when he and Yennefer were in earlier, but now it is causing the whole room to dance unpleasantly. His nerves dance with it, jangling and rattling. Geralt grits his teeth and gets the quarters from the machine, switches his laundry over, and ducks back out into the hallway. As Geralt heads back towards the gym, he becomes lost in thought again. 

It was hard to square the pain and self-loathing inside of him with the peace he felt around the queers he’d been serving. The other queers that he’d been serving, if he was going to be honest. And the honesty burned like ice under his skin, making even his bones ache. He twisted between the contradictory feelings, unable to face them.

Vesemir had frequently told him that adopting him was the worst mistake he’d ever made, a worthless investment and a failure. And when another boy had been caught kissing Geralt at school at around eleven, Vesemir had thrashed Geralt within an inch of his life. He had used a belt, whaling him with the buckled end and leaving huge welts and gashes. Geralt had been forced to sleep on his stomach for weeks, his back covered in sticky wads of gauze that Vesemir had placed. It hadn’t been the first beating Geralt had received, nor was it the last, but it was certainly the worst. Then, the long list of shortcomings gained another epithet: faggot.

After that, Geralt had been terrified. Everywhere he turned there was some kind of reminder that he was in danger, from the casual slurs thrown around the military bases to the harassment, beating, and rape of the more incautious (or merely unlucky) men around him. The world he lived in had a rapacious cruel streak, and he would have done almost anything to avoid bringing it down on himself. 

When Geralt had turned 24, homosexuality had finally been removed from the DSM in the United States. He had just been starting his career when it was removed. That meant that he’d grown up in a world that looked on people like him like they were ill at best, less than human at worst. He rarely heard gay men spoken of in anything but the harshest of terms, and had internalized the urgent need to hide in order to survive. 

It had meant lying to everyone, including himself. When a boy managed to smuggle a titty magazine or postcard into the middle school barracks, Geralt had learned to ape the sweaty-palmed admiration for the images. In high school, he had learned how to brag just enough to keep the other boys out of his hair. 

In college, Geralt had learned to attend at least a few of the weekend parties every year. Learned how to allow himself to be seen with the women who flirted with him, let them crawl into his lap. If he drank enough he could push aside his indifference when they kissed him, and if he drank more, when one of them would pull him into a broom closet or a quiet bedroom for a blow job, he could close his eyes and let it happen. He’d even learned, as insistent women had drawn his hands up under their skirts, to use his dexterous fingers to please them. It protected him. Kept him safe. 

On the other hand, college had also been the first real crack in the armor he had built for himself. During his sophomore year, his boyhood friend Eskel had been assigned as his roommate. It had been the year their relationship changed. 

Eskel was the first person that had made friends with Geralt when he’d started attending military school in the United States at twelve. Geralt had been an awkward and quiet child when they’d first met. His pale coloring and foreign accent, together with his stiff demeanor when meeting new people, meant that he was ostracised from the start. Eskel hadn’t cared, though. He was easygoing where Geralt was taciturn, charming where Geralt was unintentionally rude, and he’d made friends with most of his yearmates within a fortnight of arriving at the school. 

The fact that Geralt was standoffish merely sparked Eskel’s interest, and he’d made it a special point to try and charm him. The odd, surly boy was clearly intelligent, and had a knack of being well-liked by the teachers, although Eskel could never quite figure out how he did it. Whenever Eskel made friendly advances though, bounding across the quad to try and start a conversation or genially cornering him in between classes, Geralt had shut him down. 

It had taken Eskel six months to figure out that all he needed to do to get Geralt’s full attention was ask for help. Well, to be precise, he had to be blatantly wrong about something and _then_ ask for his help. The first time it had happened, Eskel had accidentally made an incorrect assertion in class right before the bell rang. Behind him and off to his right he’d heard a scoff, and turned to see Geralt scowling incredulously at him. 

Much to Eskel’s surprise, the boy had stalked out of the classroom after him. Geralt had cornered him to tell him _exactly_ how wrong he was, in precise and categorical detail. Flustered, Eskel had said, “If you’re such an expert, then why don’t you help me study?” 

The look on Geralt’s face had been priceless. He was so taken aback that he forgot to be angry for a moment, and then his eyes lit up. Eskel found himself getting a full run down on the subject immediately, right there in the hallway. It had been like drinking from a firehose, he’d later told Geralt, but he hadn’t cared, because it was so gratifying to see Geralt finally engage with him.

Eskel would say that the friendship started right there, but Geralt saw it a little differently. To his eyes, Eskel, who had seemed a boy of normal intelligence, suddenly became _very stupid._ It had exasperated Geralt to no end, but he’d set to work helping the other boy out. No matter how many lectures he gave him though, or how detailed they were, Eskel always seemed to find another dumb question to ask. It was genuinely astonishing.

It had taken him months to start trusting the other boy enough to actually warm up to him. By that point Eskel had taken a genuine liking to Geralt, and soon they were fast friends. Eskel made it a point to help Geralt socialize with the other boys, which made Geralt’s life quite a bit easier. In turn, Geralt had been happy to continue helping Eskel study. 

They’d been lucky enough to attend the same high school. By then, they were often mistaken for brothers. It hadn’t hurt that they looked so similar, with their rangy, broad-shouldered frames and golden eyes. Eskel’s hair was dark where Geralt’s was ice blond, but they had the same cupid’s bow lip and high cheekbones, and they were almost always seen together when they had a moment to spare. Eskel’s project of helping Geralt be more sociable had more or less been a success, but Geralt’s attempts to enlighten Eskel were met with a continued charade of stupidity and ignorance. 

When they had graduated high school, they’d applied to the same set of military colleges. Through a stroke of luck, they’d both been accepted into one of the premier colleges in the nation. The first year split them apart, and Geralt had rarely felt lonelier in his entire life. They saw each other in the halls, and Geralt sometimes was able to make time to help Eskel study, but there was a rift between them that grew as each busy month passed.

The following year when they’d been assigned as roommates, Geralt hadn’t known how to feel about it at first. The loss of contact the previous year left him feeling awkward around his best friend, not quite able to trust the idea of opening back up to him. But Eskel, ever good-natured, had won him back over in a matter of weeks. It was a comfort to have someone nearby in the middle of the night when nightmares struck, not to mention a co-conspirator in mischief. 

One night, Eskel had managed to smuggle in a truly generous portion of hooch. They had knocked it back quickly to hide the evidence. Then they discreetly cleaned the vessel and snuck it back into its proper place. That having been accomplished and feeling very clever indeed, they had collapsed together in a fit of giggles on the bottom bunk. Eskel’s bunk at the top of the ladder felt like it might as well have been on the moon.

They’d melted into a puddle on the bed together and had one of those long, rambling conversations that you can only have when you’re young and drunk and it’s the middle of the night. Eventually the topic had turned to sex. Eskel, who had a great deal more freedom at home on holidays, had already taken lovers by the time he was sixteen years old. He’d had the time and safety to discover that he was bisexual, and he’d been more than happy to tell Geralt about his exploits with people of both sexes. Normally Geralt at least tried to make up stories of his own, fictional women indistinguishable from the brags of the other young men his age. That night he was so silent that Eskel, even though he was blind drunk, had taken notice.

It had piqued his curiosity, and Geralt for once was too hammered to lie about his love life, at least insofar as women were concerned. It turned out that he hadn’t ever properly made out with a girl, much less gone any further. As to his feelings about men, he was silent. 

The idea that Geralt had survived to the age of 19 without ever making out with someone had blown Eskel’s mind. He’d known how few opportunities Geralt had to meet women in military school, but he hadn’t realized exactly how strict Vesemir was about Geralt making outings on his visits home until right then. 

Gallantly, he had offered to do the only thing a real friend would do in this situation, which was to kiss Geralt and correct that imbalance in his life. He wasn’t a girl, Eskel had explained earnestly to him, but at least Geralt could get some practice in. That way he wouldn’t be so hopeless when they finally attained off campus privileges next year, and the co-ed parties that entailed. 

At first, Eskel hadn’t understood the weird flash of pain in Geralt’s eyes. But his friend had tipped his chin up, inviting him in to brush lips, soft as a butterfly. That tiny touch had been like a spark to tinder, kindling a wildfire. Their tongues slid together, then their hands were fisting each other’s shirts, and within breathless moments they were grinding together like they’d die if they couldn’t get just a little closer to one another. Sloppy kisses with clashing teeth turned into a frantic flurry of discarded clothing, and they had tangled together on the floor amongst their pajamas to avoid the shrieking of bedsprings. They’d fucked against the cold linoleum breathlessly, mindlessly, cocks pressed together between their bodies as they writhed. 

Lying together on the sticky floor afterwards, sweaty and panting, Eskel had turned and blinked at Geralt. “You don’t like girls, do you.” It was a statement, not a question. Staring at the ceiling, sweat cooling on his chest, Geralt had shaken his head. Eskel had grunted, but he’d been content to leave it at that. Geralt was Geralt. Eskel didn’t mind keeping his secret.

After that, their friendship had transformed. They had no romantic leanings towards one another, but they were young and hungry. They became lovers. Geralt had many memories of tangling together in the dark with Eskel; hungry, silent, frightened memories. Their encounters had slaked the sheer physical brunt of his loneliness and craving for touch, but they’d also left him feeling so much more isolated and lost. Eskel had other lovers, and was able to show his classmates pictures of his occasional girlfriends. Geralt was always afraid of discovery, though. Always alone. 

When Geralt started the service alongside Eskel, he had become more discreet than when he was in college, but occasionally his longing would boil over. Geralt would find himself tangled with Eskel in deserted places, desperately seeking a moment of relief. There were other men around the bases too, sometimes. Rare sparks of heat hidden guiltily in back rooms and motel suites, the little joy they derived swamped by the fear of being caught. 

Then had come Yennefer. She had given him hope, for a while. He’d never been more attracted to a woman in his life. Part of him had hoped that he could redeem himself by falling in love with her. And in a way, he truly had. After their first drink together they had exchanged poetry, novels, long hours of discussion that led into a kind of emotional intimacy he’d never had before. Their relationship quickly became a deep source of strength and support for them both. They ate together, slept near one another when they could, and sparred like puppies. Sometimes, he was even able to convince himself that the surge of adrenaline from tangling with another warm body was desire.

The magnetism between Geralt and Yennefer was intense. For both of them it had presented an opportunity to escape their identities, a chance to pretend at normalcy and hide from harassment. It was possible to maintain the illusion that they had a crush on one another, at least in the company of other people. Even in private, sometimes they pretended to each other, to themselves. Brief brushes of lips, sweet caressing hands on breasts, halfhearted fingers dipping into waistbands but never following through. 

They maintained the facade of attraction to one another for years, each in their own way wishing it was real. It had all shattered when they finally fucked. They had been laying around a hotel room in Tel Aviv during one of Geralt’s month-long periods of leave. Coën had gone out to find a lover, and as far as Geralt knew he’d been successful because it had been rolling around to 3 am and there was no sign of him. Yennefer had procured some surprisingly smooth arak, and together they had been steadily demolishing it for hours. 

Suddenly she had rolled over with a twinkle in her eye, and announced that she thought it was time for them to fuck. Everyone already thought they were doing it, she said, crawling up along his body. Why not see what all of the fuss was about? And Geralt had felt a rush of longing, and he smiled and pulled her close. He had tried, and his heart had been in it… But he had been unable to perform properly, despite rallying at the very end, and Yennefer had looked bored out of her mind the whole time. When they parted, they discovered that the condom had slipped off.

That night, they cemented the suspicion that Yennefer was asexual. She’d never been more attracted to a man in her life, but nevertheless, fucking Geralt had left her as cold as all the others. In a way, it was a relief. There was no pretending anymore, not even for herself. It was also the night that Yennefer figured out that Geralt was gay. She’d had suspicions, but the utter despair he’d had on his face when he hadn’t been able to stay hard was telling. When she’d rolled over and locked eyes with him, asking him point blank, he hadn’t been able to answer her. The bleak, lonely expression he’d given her had been answer enough. 

Yennefer had laid at his side, replaying all of her memories of their life together back to herself. Suddenly, a lot of things that hadn’t quite fit snapped into focus. The way Geralt didn’t spent much time around other women, despite bragging about them like every other soldier she’d met in her fucking life. His absolute refusal to keep porn mags around, _unlike_ basically every other soldier she’d ever met, Coën included. The amount of time he spent with Eskel… When she’d asked him about _that,_ he’d turned bright red and rolled over, hiding his head under his pillow. Upon further interrogation, he’d finally admitted that they were lovers. More things clicked into place. 

Next week Yennefer had taught Geralt how to find a call boy safely. Seeing prostitutes was better than risking everything with his coworkers, the way she saw it. At first, she’d been there to escort him, to help keep him safe as he learned the ropes. Later, after Cirilla, he found them on his own. Yennefer’s skills as an investigative journalist had been invaluable, and Geralt was able to keep his affairs discreet. 

When he and Yennefer had realized she was pregnant, they both panicked. Neither of them was prepared in any way to be a parent. Yennefer had inherited a genetic condition from her mother that caused growths in her uterus- she had been told she’d never have a child. She had told Geralt about how, as a teenager, the pain had been so bad they’d nearly removed her uterus. She’d refused to let them do it. It was _her_ choice, and she wasn’t about to let it be taken away from her. 

Geralt remembered sitting next to her staring at the positive pregnancy test as clear as day, as if it had just happened a moment ago. He had seen a look of crushing certainty cross Yennefer’s face that had frightened him to his marrow. He knew before she’d even said it that she couldn’t give this surprise child up. It didn’t matter how afraid Yennefer was of being a bad parent. It felt like the only chance that she would ever have, and she told him so. Deep in his bones, beneath the terrible fear of fucking up some helpless scrap of a being, Geralt had known it was his only chance, too. 

After some discussion, he and Yennefer had gotten married. It was a sensible choice, providing Yennefer with access to the benefits of being a military spouse, and Geralt with clear rights to see his daughter should something unexpected happen. The ceremony had been a simple one, held by a military chaplain. After that, hiding had been a great deal easier for both of them. Yennefer no longer felt the pressure to ‘find someone,’ as it were, and Geralt finally had an excuse as to why he wasn’t seeing other women. The marriage had protected them, concealed them both. 

Over the years the hiding had eaten at Geralt though. Worn him thin. And at the very end, he had started to get sloppy. Freezing when he should have dodged. Ducking out of cover too soon, or back into it too slow. Allowing Eskel to up the ante as they drowned in numbness, escalating because they were both desperate to feel anything, anything at all. Something was going to break, and eventually it had. 

Which led Geralt, in a circle, back here. To Rhode Island, to the hotel, to Jaskier and Yennefer and the rest of his small family waiting in London. To the raw light raking across the pain, kindness where there shouldn’t have been any, to hunger and craving and satiation. For the first time in his life he was free to want what he wanted, and it was terrifying. 

Jaskier had been like heat after a long trek in the deep cold, warming his bones. Kissing him had felt like dying a good death. Intimacy with him had been like bathing in light, radiant memories searing through the haze surrounding them. Spending quiet time in Jaskier’s company, eating, discussing meaningless things, had been full of peace, like Geralt’s feet were touching the earth for the first time in a life of freefall. 

Even more disorienting was the fact that Yennefer had hunted Geralt down. He genuinely hadn’t believed Yennefer would come looking for him. He barely felt like he had a right to his family before he’d been discharged, and he couldn’t understand why they would still want him now. The money he’d been making was gone, he was a terrible father, and he’d brought danger and shame to their doorstep by being publicly outed as gay. 

The fact that Yennefer had spent weeks hunting for him in a foreign city spoke more than words ever could. The unwavering love that she’d shown when she found him had stricken him to the quick, something he had no armor for and no way of coping with. Yennefer didn’t _care_ that he was gay. She didn’t care that he’d lost his job and couldn’t support her anymore. All she’d wanted was the same thing she’d wanted all along. To know that he was safe. To know that he was happy. She and Coën supported him in ways that he couldn’t even fathom, and they weren’t about to let his public outing destroy their family. 

In fact, if anything, Yennefer had been relieved. To her, it meant a chance to knit their family back together and connect Geralt to his daughter and brother. It had been a long time since he had spoken on the phone to either of them, but Yennefer had finally talked him into making a call with her tonight. The family were worried sick about him, and she’d convinced Geralt that hearing his voice would do them a world of good after the scare he’d given them. 

Reluctantly, he’d agreed. Yennefer had told Geralt she called Ciri every night at around 0300 (0800 in London) to greet her after breakfast. Coën had already informed Ciri that Geralt had been found. Tonight he was going to hear the voices of his brother and daughter for the first time in months. He isn’t sure he wants to. The guilt of that is the final straw that breaks his composure. 

A wave of overwhelming emotion crashes slowly down over Geralt, leaving him just enough time to get himself someplace safe to discharge the energy. He pushes blindly into the gym, downs his water bottle, and climbs onto a treadmill. Yennefer rises to greet him and he ignores her, keying the treadmill into motion with numb fingers. Then he ups the pace until he is running full-tilt, straining to keep himself in place. 

Yennefer’s face darkens with concern, and she approaches him slowly. She moves up to the side of the treadmill and examines Geralt’s face, his body. They are stiff, blank, a carefully controlled exterior of utter calm that belies the explosions happening underneath. With a grim look, she presses her lips together and nods, recognizing a meltdown in progress. 

His face has a peculiar way of turning off when he hits the point of meltdown, like a book being slammed shut. The first time it had happened, she hadn’t understood what she was seeing, but that had been years ago. Now, she can recognize them from a mile away. At first, she’d thought he was having some kind of tantrum while they were arguing. It took her a lot longer to understand that his meltdowns were, in fact, a physical expression of being totally overwhelmed. Not something he chose, but something that happened to him without his consent or control. 

_Yennefer slammed the binder down onto the shitty motel bed, eyes flashing. “And you know what else?” She snapped, beginning to rifle through it with short, sharp motions. The binder bounced on the tan and white duvet under the force of her ire. “I don’t give a rat's ass what order the battalions had their platoons in! Not! Fucking! Relevant!”_

_“But-” Geralt said, trying to get a word in edgewise. His normally pale face was almost white with distress, the muscles around his jaw tight. He was sitting on the edge of the single bed in the hotel room, a few feet from where Yennefer was abusing her binder._

_“No! I’m sorry, was I not clear just then? Do you want me to write it on your dick? Maybe you’ll see it down there.” She snarled, slapping a page down so hard she tore part of it._

_“But the-” Geralt tried again, growing increasingly agitated. Unusually for him, he was panting, his body compressed and stiff. Normally even when he was annoyed with her, there was a steadiness about his presence that she’d come to rely on. The fact that it was now mysteriously absent wasn’t lost on her, but it only served to pour fuel on the fire. Anything that made Yennefer nervous usually made her angry, and this was no exception._

_“No!” Yennefer shouted, cutting him off with a sweeping motion of her hand. They’d been arguing about picayune details of troop movement for over an hour, and she couldn’t understand why he was so obsessed by certain things that she, frankly, found irrelevant. She’d personally hit the last straw about ten minutes ago. Normally Geralt had the sense to leave off when she got too angry, but he seemed stuck this time, like he just couldn’t let it go. She rounded on him just in time to see his face switch off. One moment he was engaged with her, agitated but paying attention. The next, his face was a carefully controlled blank, stiff and empty._

_In the two years that she’d known him, she’d never seen this particular facial expression on Geralt. At that moment she was too angry to think about it rationally though. Under the impression that he was switching argument tactics to give her the silent treatment, she stalked over to him. “And another thing!” No movement. He didn’t even look at her. His eyes didn’t even flicker._

_Exasperated, she tried again. “Geralt, I swear to fuck, you aren’t five years old. Don’t ignore me!” When he didn’t move, she shoved his shoulder. “I don’t think so, asshole! You don’t get to treat me like that!” With a sudden, explosive motion, Geralt violently shrugged her hand off of his shoulder and rose from the hotel bed. Yennefer hopped back, sheer surprise derailing her anger. Geralt had always been exquisitely gentle with her, even at play._

_He began to stalk stiffly back and forth across the room as if she wasn’t there, hands folded at the back of his neck, his breath coming in short pants. She stumbled out of the way as he pushed past her, making a restless circuit of the whole room. At first, she continued to try to get his attention, to no avail. Finally, as the restless movement continued, she found herself retreating to Coën’s room across the way. This was now officially out of her league, and she wanted backup._

_Coën was asleep when she found him, and she gently punted him in the ribs. He awoke with a start and squinted at her blearily, then at the clock. It was late afternoon, but he’d gone to bed at around dawn, so it wasn’t surprising that he was still down. “Gfqukx?” he muttered irritably, scrubbing his face._

_“There’s something wrong with Geralt. I think I broke him.”_

_Yennefer’s face hanging over his head was surprisingly anxious, which wasn’t like her. Normally when presented with a problem, she jumped straight to anger and then razed whatever obstacle was in her way down to smoking rubble. Coën gave her a long, puzzled look, then startled as he heard a ‘thump’ from across the way in Yennefer and Geralt’s room. He swung his legs out of bed quickly, grabbing his pants out of the air as Yennefer tossed them to him. “Wha’d you do, Yenna?” he slurred irritably, still half awake as he tugged his pants on._

_“Argue with him! All we were doing was arguing! I don’t know what the fuck his stupid problem is but I think he’s mad that I’m right.” Yennefer tossed her hands in the air, then glared over her shoulder at the door._

_Coën snorted. That was a very Yennefer take on the situation. Another thump caused his head to jerk up, and he stuffed his feet rapidly into his scuffed old boots. It sounded like Geralt was hitting the walls. He normally hated drawing attention to himself, even when he was angry. Yennefer was right, something was off._

_The sound of a door opening in the hall made Yennefer start. She opened Coën’s door just in time to see Geralt take off down the hall, face still blank and unreadable. He was moving at a light jog, and as she watched, he pushed out of the door at the end of the motel hall and onto the dusty street outside. Something about the strained way he was moving, the stiffness of his face, alarmed the hell out of both Coën and Yennefer. They looked at each other._

_“You call Eskel. I’m going after him.” Coën announced, thinking quickly. “I don’t know what the fuck that just was but I don’t like it.” And without another word, he booked out through the door and followed Geralt up the street. They might not be best friends or anything, but his buddy Geralt looked like he might not be able to take care of himself just then and Coën wasn’t about to let him get hurt._

_Back in the little motel, Yennefer’s stomach gave a nervous twist. She poked her head out the door and watched Coën vanish, then looked back at the little black phone sitting on the dented bedside table. She didn’t know Eskel well enough to like him yet, but he was Geralt’s best friend. They’d known each other forever. Coën was right. If anyone would have insight into what the fuck just happened, it would be him._

_Praying that he’d actually get back to her, Yennefer sat down on Coën’s rumpled bed and dialed Eskel’s pager number. She keyed in the number for the motel room, her name, and ‘911!’ then hung up and waited. Realizing the door to her own room was still hanging open, she got up, closed it, and came back to sit amongst the tangled blankets. The phone rang a moment later._

_With a rush of relief, she answered. “Hello?” She had a habit of picking on good-natured Eskel, and now she slightly regretted it. What if he hadn’t picked up?_

_“Hello? Lieutenant Úlfur speaking.”_

_“Eskel. It’s Yennefer. Do you have a minute?”_

_“Not a long one, why? What’s going on?”_

_“It’s Geralt. I think I broke him.”_

_There was a long pause in which Eskel could almost be heard choosing his words carefully. “I think you’re going to have to tell me the rest.” And Yennefer did, rushing through a description of the incident as quickly as possible. When she finished, he snorted softly into the receiver. “He’s probably fine. He never goes far. It might not look like it, but he’s usually still pretty aware of his surroundings when he freaks out.”_

_“What, he’s done this before?” Yennefer asked, astonished. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a big strong guy like Geralt would do, much less do frequently. In the privacy of her own mind she thanked Coën’s quick thinking intuition. If she’d been on her own, she’s not sure she would have thought to call Eskel about this._

_“Yup. Used to hide it by running on the track at school. I bet he just went out for a run, he’ll be back soon.” Eskel sounded calm, his voice gentle as he tried to reassure Yennefer. He didn’t like her much yet either, but she was important to Geralt, so he was going to do his best to be kind to her._

_“We’re in the middle of Tel Aviv! Where the fuck is he going to run?” Yennefer snapped. She stood, grabbing the phone base and going to look out the window with the cord trailing behind her. There was nothing but dusty, crappy parking lot beyond the brown and orange curtains. It was deserted, save for a few cars._

_“In the middle of Tel Aviv, probably. If Coën’s with him, they’ll be fine.” Eskel replied, a note of amusement in his voice. “Look, is this the first time you’ve seen him freak out like this?” If Geralt had been alone with Yennefer, Eskel might have been more concerned, but he’d seen Coën in action around Geralt before. The photographer might be into causing mischief on his down time, but he was a steady ally when things got serious, and Eskel had faith in his ability to wrangle Geralt._

_“Do you think I would have called you over something I’m used to, asshat?” Yennefer paced back to the bed and stuffed the phone back onto the bedside table. She sank onto Coën’s bed, looking around the ugly little motel room. Brown carpet. Cream colored walls, yellowed by smoke. She began to pick at a tiny rip in the duvet._

_“...Fair. Fine. Listen, he must like you. He doesn’t usually feel safe enough to lose it around anyone but me.” Eskel shifted, and she could hear a crinkle in the background._

_“That doesn’t make a fucking lick of sense.”_

_He snorted. “Maybe not, but look. I’ve known him since we were twelve. I’ve never once seen him crack unless he’s someplace where he has a gut feeling he’s safe. So. He likes you. Good for you.” Eskel paused, and she could hear the scrape of a lighter in the background, then a slow exhale. “I don’t know why it happens, but sometimes he just… I don’t know. Gets overloaded or something. It always passes.”_

_“How the fuck did he make it through military school?”_

_“Like I said.” Eskel paused to take a drag of his cigarette, then puffed it out. “He doesn’t crack unless he’s someplace safe. When he was a kid he’d just wait until no one was watching. Or he’d wait til he was alone with me. I think it scares him, to be perfectly honest with you. He doesn’t like talking about it at all. Mm. Speaking of which, if you tell him you called me about this, that’s on your own head.”_

_Yennefer snorted. Geralt would be mortified if he knew she and Eskel were discussing him like this, but that was the least of her worries right now. “If he wants to fight me over it I’m sure I can handle it.” She paused, nibbling the inside of her lip. “If this happens again, is there anything I can do?”_

_“Ehh. I’ve tried to talk to him while he’s freaking out but it doesn’t seem to do much good. He’s like… it seems like he’s mostly aware, but he doesn’t have a ton of control over what’s going on with his body. He can’t talk to you no matter what, so don’t try asking him anything that isn’t a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.” Eskel paused, as if deliberating something. Then he added, “It’ll make it worse if you yell at him, though. You gotta talk to him real soft and slow.”_

_Yennefer frowns, about to voice a complaint, but breaks off as Eskel keeps talking. Her stomach churns with nervous anger, and she picks even more ferociously at the blanket. Geralt was a grown man, she shouldn’t have to lift a finger to help or protect him. It wasn’t fair. It was even less fair that she liked him enough that she was probably going to do it anyway._

_“When you’re trying to get through to him after he’s freaked out, sometimes nonverbal communication works. Hand gestures, gentle touches if he sees ‘em coming, like that.” Eskel continues, his voice soft and even. “I figured out through trial and error that getting overwhelmed seems to be what kicks this problem off. And uh, after fucking around with it a little bit, it turned out the quickest way to cool him off was getting him someplace dark and quiet away from people. So you could try that.” He pauses, taking a puff from his cigarette as he thinks. “If he hasn’t got anywhere safe like that, I used to take him for a run. The point is to get him away from noise and people as much as you can.” Another pause, another slow exhale of smoke. “Have you seen him do that funky rocking thing yet?”_

_Yennefer narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to go with no, because I don’t think you mean that little bopping thing he does when he’s thinking deeply.” She pulled a long thread out of the duvet cover, then gritted her teeth when she realized she’d caused a run in the cheap fabric. With a quick movement she snapped the thread, then balled it up into a little knot and flicked it irritably into the trash can._

_“I definitely don’t. He uh, he has this thing he does where he’ll rock his whole body back and forth and like. Hit himself. Tap on himself with his hands. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe, I’ve only seen him do it a few times. It looks freaky, but it’s harmless. I don’t know what the fuck is happening there, but it seems to really calm him down. If he ever kicks off with that, just let him do it, it’s helping him.”_

_“Do you know why?” Yennefer asked, frowning._

_Eskel blew out a breath. “Nope. No clue. Just one of those things about him. I do know if he tries to hide the movement or stop it, it makes it worse though, so uh. Don’t make him stop if he starts, I’m really serious about that.”_

_Yennefer bit her lip. This was way out of her league, and she was_ not _happy about it. Still… she thought back on Geralt’s warm presence in her bed the night before, and something in her softened. “Okay. Anything else?”_

_“Ehh… I don’t think so. Well, wait, no. You guys are pretty close nowadays, right?” There was a note of hesitation in his voice, a catch that Yennefer at the time hadn’t understood. She’d found out later that it wasn’t because Eskel was jealous, precisely… More that it was bittersweet for him to see Geralt beginning to deeply bond with another person, especially one as aggressive as Yennefer. It made socializing as a group difficult, and he’d been spending less time with Geralt as a result. It was good that Geralt was happier, good that he was maybe even falling in love, but Eskel missed his best friend._

_“Close enough. Why?” Yennefer replied, her voice guarded. If Eskel was about to say something impertinent, she was happy to rip him a new one._

_“Well… he drops tells when he’s starting to wind up. I figured out years ago if I could get him someplace quiet fast enough sometimes he’d chill out and we wouldn’t have to do the whole… thing, whatever it is that he does. From what he says about you, it sounds like he trusts you a lot, so you might be able to herd him away when he’s winding up.”_

_“What, I’m his mother? No! That sounds like a pain in the ass, he can take care of himself.” Yennefer growled. She was hitting her limit with suggestions of ways to care for a grown ass adult. This shouldn’t be her fucking problem. It’s not like any other man she’d been close to needed this kind of care._

_Eskel went silent, exasperated. Occasionally, she could hear a shift, an exhale. Finally he said, “You asked me if there was anything else, this is the anything else. Do you want to know or not?” She could hear a note of carefully concealed anger in his voice. Eskel might be calm, even sweet, but when it came to Geralt’s wellbeing his patience for other people’s foibles was limited._

_Yennefer hesitated, torn. She had something approaching zero interest in acting like Geralt’s damn caretaker, but on the other hand, he had become important to her. She didn’t like picking up after other people’s emotional messes, but she found that she liked the idea of letting him suffer alone even less. She wavered, then said, “Fine. Yes. I want to know.”_

_Eskel gave a soft grunt, and she could hear a note of grudging approval in it. “All right.” He said, and his chair creaked as he leaned out of position for a moment, then again as he relaxed back into his spot. “Hmm. All right. So first thing you’re gonna want to look for is the way he moves. It’ll depend on whether he’s in a public place or not what you’re looking for.”_

_“Why the difference?”_

_“Trust. Safety. Out in public if one kicks off he’ll clamp down on it and hide it, it looks different than when he’s alone in a room or, you know, with someone he trusts.”_

_Yennefer chewed her lip, thinking the last two hours over. Now that Eskel mentioned it, Geralt_ had _been moving differently. “Okay. I’m listening.”_

_“All right. So. Out in public, he gets real still and stiff.”_

_“How the fuck am I supposed to differentiate that from how he usually moves?” Yennefer snapped, annoyed. Geralt wasn’t exactly the most expressive person when he was around people he didn’t trust, which was almost everyone._

_“Hey. I’m not with him all the time anymore, you are. I don’t know how to describe it, you’re just gonna have to look for it. You’ll see what I mean.” Eskel replied, stung. Yennefer had a way of getting under his skin, and he didn’t always know how to handle it._

_“Fine.” Yennefer glared unapologetically at the dirty, ugly wallpaper covering the motel room walls. “And in private?”_

_“You’ve seen him flick his fingers and crack his knuckles and stuff, right? All those little repetitive movements he makes when he thinks no one’s looking?”_

_Yennefer snorted softly. As a matter of fact she knew exactly what Eskel was talking about. It was one of the more unusual things about Geralt, but she found it charming. “Yes. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”_

_“Well… he gets stiff in public ‘cause he’s trying to hide those. In private, if he feels safe enough, he’ll start doing a lot of those movements. Rocking. Pacing, too. You’ll see different ones as well, not just the uh, publicly acceptable ones like knuckle cracking. When you see it you’ll know it. He starts doing it really intensely when he’s upset and about to blow.”_

_Feeling uneasy, Yennefer scooted up to put her back against the headboard. This was way out of her depth, and what’s worse, she didn’t really understand any of it. There was no good reason she could see for Geralt to be like this. The fact that she couldn’t make sense of it and couldn’t name it made her nervous and angry. She hesitated for a moment, again considering hanging up on Eskel and washing her hands of the whole mess, but something kept her on the line. After a moment she said. “Okay. What else?”_

_“Uh.” Eskel paused, blew out a drag of his smoke. “Okay. Tone of voice. He uh, his voice flattens out even more. Starts getting clipped. It sounds like he’s getting snippy but it’s a little different.”_

_“That… actually I did hear today, now that you mention it.” Yennefer admitted, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Okay. Anything else?”_

_“Yeah. You know that thing he does when he’s fed up with everyone’s shit and wants to bail?”_

_“Yes. I know exactly what you mean. He gets squirrely. Starts looking for exits and making excuses about his grandmother being on fire, so to speak.”_

_Eskel gave a low, warm chuckle. “Exactly. You see that paired up with him getting stiff and short-tempered, chances are he’s on the wind up. It’s… different from when he’s mad. Once you spot it, I think you’ll know what I mean. You’re pretty sharp.”_

_Yennefer blinked, then relaxed slightly, mollified by the compliment. “I probably will. Is it safe for him to take off like he just did? We’re not in a familiar part of the city.”_

_“Ehh… not really, no. I mean, generally it’s been fine because he avoids people, but he can get pretty agitated if they try to touch him or get him to talk while he’s like this. If he’s out in public that could go real bad, real fast. So uh. Try to keep him from booking it out of there in the future. But since Coën’s there with him, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Betcha they’ll be back any minute.”_

_Staring at the dingy bedside table, Yennefer thought it over. Her eyes traced the bubbles in the varnish, the scuffs and scratches in the wood. “Okay. Has he… do you know if he’s ever been to a doctor about it?”_

_Eskel snorted smoke and coughed. The cough very quickly became a chuckle. “No. Fuck no. Our boy wouldn’t go to a doctor over shit like that, he doesn’t want anyone to know.” He coughed again, clearing his throat and settling back down. “Man. Don’t ever try and talk him into it, that’s the fastest way to get him mad I’ve ever found.”_

_“Personal experience?”_

_“Mm. Yup. He doesn’t like it when there’s something different about him. Likes to hide it.”_

_“I’ve noticed. Has he always been like that?”_

_“Yup. His old man is a piece of work. Always wants him to be the perfect little soldier boy. Anything that woulda kept him from success in the Army was a non-starter.”_

_Yennefer grunted, frowning. “He doesn’t talk much about him.” By this point she’d seen the scars. They’d horrified her and filled her with unspeakable anger, but she’d never been able to get Geralt to talk about them. He didn’t like talking about Col. Vesemir at all, not if he could avoid it._

_“Nnnope. Don’t expect that to change.” The chair creaked again. “Listen, thanks for calling. He ever gets in trouble and you need me, I’m there. No questions asked.”_

_“I know.” She hesitated, frowning, then added. “Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.”_

_Eskel chuckled. “No problem. I figured you wouldn’t call me unless something was on fire.” His chair creaked again. “Look, I gotta get off to work soon. Are you guys going to be ok?”_

_“Yes.” Yennefer replied with conviction. She wasn’t actually certain that they were, but she knew that she didn’t want to have to juggle Eskel’s feelings on top of everyone else’s when Geralt and Coën finally turned back up. “Talk to you later, Lt. Úlfur.”_

_“You’ve got it. Be safe out there.” Eskel hung up, leaving Yennefer sitting alone on Coën’s motel bed. She hung up the phone and stood, heading back out into the hallway. For a brief moment she considered going out to find her boys, but she very quickly realized that she was going to find them faster by staying put. With a sigh, she went back into her hotel room and began to tidy away her binders. Even if there was still work to be done, it would have to wait until later. She couldn’t focus anymore._

_It wasn’t long after that when she heard the outside door slam and the soft noise of Geralt’s footsteps coming back up the hall, followed by Coën’s heavier tread. She raised her head as they came into the room._

_“No.” Geralt said, the second he saw Yennefer. Behind him, Coën rolled his eyes._

_“Ger-” She began, but he cut her off with an angry gesture._

_“No! I don’t want to talk about it. Leave me alone.” He began stuffing his things into his bag, meeting her look of angry astonishment with a flat glare._

_“Going somewhere?” Coën drawled laconically, leaning against the hallway door. He didn’t look particularly interested in letting Geralt leave again, but his body was relaxed, his expression amiable and unthreatening._

_“Finding someplace else to sleep. Leave me alone.” Geralt snapped, burning with embarrassment. Behind him, Coën snorted._

_“Chill, asshole. No one’s mad at you. Settle in, I’ll go buy us a couple of six packs or something. You cool to hang out?” He sauntered over and got into Geralt’s face, gently backing him away from his bag. Geralt growled, annoyed, but he allowed Coën to maneuver him into an ugly little chair in the corner of the room. “Yenna promises not to pry, doesn’t she? We’ll deal with it some other time. No big deal.” He patted Geralt on the shoulder, unimpressed by his stormy expression. Then he turned, fixing Yennefer with a long, quelling look that said, ‘You know you wanna play ball, don’t you?’_

_Geralt shrugged Coën’s hand off, but remained in his chair. He turned a somewhat more uncertain look on Yennefer, who up until that point absolutely_ had _been planning to grill him._

_Yennefer, having the courtesy to look slightly guilty as Coën stared her down, nodded. “Maybe there’s some shitty movie on the telly. I’ll get it on, we can finish up our work later.” She glanced at Coën, who nodded._

_“Sounds like a plan.” Coën said, pleased that Yennefer had decided for once to simmer down and help Geralt out. The two of them could be like toddlers sometimes, kicking off irrational arguments at the slightest provocation. He stepped out from between them carefully, observing their body language for cues of further aggression much like a zoologist might study two angry animals. When he felt assured that they were finally settled and done with fighting, he grinned. “Okay. You kids be good while I’m out, I’ll be back in a few.” He sauntered out of the room, leaving Geralt and Yennefer sitting in awkward silence._

_When he came back some time later, bearing a huge box of falafels and a case of beer, Yennefer and Geralt were perched stiffly on opposite ends of the bed, watching a movie. Ignoring the obvious tension between the two of them, Coën kicked off his boots and tossed each of them a cold beer. Then he shoved Geralt aside, forcing him to the middle of the bed so that Coën could sit on the outside edge._

_By the end of the night, Yennefer and Coën were drunk and leaning companionably against Geralt, one on each side. At first he’d looked put upon, but by now he was full of food and beer, sleepy and comfortable. Tentatively, he relaxed between the two of them, a look of bemused affection on his face. They spent the rest of the night that way, screen flickering across their faces until they fell asleep._

Yennefer retreats to the door of the gym and looks around the hallway, then settles herself in a chair near the entryway. Nothing to do now but wait, and stop him if he tries to take off before he’s worn himself out. Sighing, she takes a long pull from her water bottle and gets comfortable, dropping into a light meditation while she studies the wall opposite. Out of the corner of her eye, he continues running. 

Over the years, Yennefer had gotten used to Geralt’s seemingly endless series of little quirks. By the time their daughter had been born, they were almost invisible to her. That’s why it had come to her as a surprise when Coën had first drawn the parallel between Geralt’s quirks and Ciri’s needs, after Ciri had been diagnosed as autistic when she was a toddler. At first, she hadn’t wanted to see the similarities, but before long the parallels were glaring. It hadn’t taken her and Coën long after that to figure that Geralt was likely autistic as well, though they both know there would be hell to pay if they actually tried to point it out to him. Geralt could hardly cope with being gay, it didn’t make sense to add one more thing to his plate. The insight had been good, though. It had meant she and Coën were at least better able to understand Geralt and meet his needs, especially during the stressful visits home every year. 

Running himself out takes the better part of an hour, but eventually Geralt wears himself down. The energy begins to dissipate, and his legs and arms begin shaking as he runs. He carefully slows the pace to a more manageable rate. Then he runs the rest of the trembling out of his limbs before keying the machine to a stop. He’s dripping with sweat, panting with the exertion, emotionally spent. 

When Yennefer comes up to his elbow again, Geralt barely notices her. She exerts gentle pressure on his arm and he goes where she leads, the scent of lilac and gooseberry cutting through the stink of stress and sweat. He would have been able to find the room on his own, eventually, but he trusts her to guide him. 

Silently she leads him through the hotel and back to their room, communicating with gentle touches. Keying the door open, she uses her hand to gently urge him inside. Closing the door behind him, she hands him a clean towel and points to the bathroom. She knows speech is not as effective when he’s dazed like this, so she relies on gentle nonverbal cues. He blinks dumbly in the direction of the bathroom door for a moment, waiting for meaning to become clear. Yennefer waits patiently with him, watching his eyes trace the space between her finger and the bathroom door. Eventually, understanding dawns. Nodding, he takes the towel and pads off to shower. 

When Yennefer is sure that the shower is running and he is inside of it, she quickly exits the room and heads back downstairs to retrieve the laundry. Normally she insists that he care for it himself, but tonight, she thought it better to just get it done. Hurrying back, she manages to return before he is out of the shower.

Geralt emerges some time later, his eyes clearer, clean-shaven, a towel wrapped around his waist. Yennefer is hanging the last of his shirts in the hotel closet, keeping them from getting rumpled. She smoothes the wine-red one out between her fingers, then turns to face him. He stills while she gives him a considering look. His eyebrows go up as she walks over to him and cups his cheek in her hand, then draws him down for a brief, chaste kiss. Her hand slides down to the back of his neck and cradles him close, forehead to forehead, then she releases him.

As Geralt straightens, he runs his hand over her hair in a gentle gesture of affection. A quick smile plays across her face as she looks up at him. “Everything all right?” She asks, knowing that it isn’t. 

“Thinking about Jaskier,” Geralt admits, in a moment of unusual honesty. “And my old man. Remembering a lot of stuff. Thinking about Ciri and Coën, too.” 

Yennefer’s face becomes more serious, and she nods. “We’re going to be calling them, soon. We should talk about it before you and I get on the phone.” A lost, hurt expression crosses Geralt’s face. He nods, and she reaches up to cup his cheek, trying to will love into him through the palm of her hand.

“I know you’re still upset about what happened last time we were all together, _kochany._ I know it’s making all of this awfulness about the discharge so much worse. But running more isn’t going to fix anything.”

Geralt grimaces and pulls away from Yennefer, his expression becoming stiff and guarded. He walks over to the bed and picks up the fresh underwear and new soft black pajama pants that Yennefer has set out on the bed for him. Normally she doesn’t set out clothes for him, but tonight he finds himself grateful to not have to think about finding the damn things in an unfamiliar room. He pulls on his underwear and pants, glowering, and then picks up the shirt.

Yennefer looks over him as he turns away, her eyes running over his naked body. It was a familiar sight to her, almost as familiar as her own. He’d never been shy about changing in front of her, or frankly, lounging around in his underwear when he was off duty. The countries where they’d spent most of their early lives together had been deadly hot, and they weren’t always lucky enough to have air conditioning. 

Yennefer’s girlfriends exclaimed about how lucky she was to see him naked like that on the regular, but to her, Geralt’s body was simply… his. She had never felt particularly stirred by it, aside from a certain unavoidable aesthetic appreciation. Her eyes run along his long limbs as he dresses, scanning for new injuries. There’s a few more scars on his calves, shiny patches where skin had been abraded or blasted away. More alarmingly, there’s a jagged new gash of a scar on his back, pink and shiny where most of the rest of them have faded to white. She frowns as he finishes putting on his pants and picks up his shirt.

Geralt tenderly lifts the t-shirt from the bed to examine it. It’s another one from home, and it still smells like Ciri’s favorite essential oil, made from orange blossoms. The oil has a tendency to get all over everything in the house, to the point that he associates it now with his visits home. As he picks it up he hesitates to put it on, his heart pulling painfully. The last time he had seen Ciri had been a mess. He sinks into a reverie as he plays with the shirt carefully, moving the fabric in a gentle, rhythmic fashion across his fingertips. 

Geralt had been in and out of her life unsteadily since she was born. He wrote her letters every month, and sent gifts as often as he could. Every time he was shipped to a new place, he would take the time to hunt down a new book of pictures to show her where he’d been. They were huge, glossy professional pieces, meant for adults and their coffee tables, but Yennefer and Ciri had told him that they treasured them. His actual physical presence in her life had been spotty, though.

He’d been able to take leave to stay with his new wife Yennefer after her pregnancy had become unstable. Coën and Geralt had gone with her back to London, where she knew people and would be able to resume work with the AP after Ciri was born. Between him and Coën, they had managed to get her through her difficult and medically complicated pregnancy. 

Ciri had been born in an NHS hospital in London. She was a tiny little scrap of a thing, but healthy and strong, with lungs that could sustain a shatteringly loud wail. It had felt like the Universe had hit Geralt between the eyes, watching her emerge into the world. Her first cry had broken him open in a way he didn’t even know he could break, and he had fallen instantly and powerfully in love. The hospital midwife had whisked her away to be cleaned and weighed, as he and Yennefer and Coën had huddled together on the hospital bed in stunned silence. 

When Ciri had been brought back some time later and placed into Yennefer’s arms, he had wondered how anything so red and wrinkly could be the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. But she was. And when Yennefer had placed her in his arms, overwhelmed, he had begun to cry, silent tears leaking down his cheeks and dripping onto her little blanket. 

Hours later, in the dark of the night, Geralt’s Army pager had begun to blow up. When he’d stumbled off of the cot and out into the hallway to find a phone, Ciri had woken in her little bassinet. He remembered hearing her crying as he wandered away from the room. 

By the time he’d gotten off of the phone a few minutes later, his newly tender heart was shattered. His leave had been canceled. There had been an emergency, and his entire battalion was being mobilized as quickly as possible. They’d given him the information about his flight booking, and he’d realized that he had to leave within the hour if he wanted to make it back to the apartment to pack and then out to the airport. 

Saying goodbye to Yen, to Coën, and especially to Ciri, felt like Geralt was ripping his whole heart out and leaving it with them. As he’d left the hospital he’d felt like his chest was on fire, like he couldn’t breathe. He’d wondered idly if this is what dying felt like, but he knew that it wasn’t. Walking out of the hospital door, Geralt felt it glide shut behind him. As it closed, a crushing wave of self-hatred had come over him. His parents had abandoned him, and now he was no better. Even years later, even when he knew better, the feeling had never really left him. Simmering with rage and crushing guilt, he had gotten into the taxi and driven away. 

That December, while he was deployed, the letter with the lock of hair had arrived from Yennefer, letting him know that he was still loved, still part of a family. And nine months later, he had been able to take leave and come home to see his family. Ciri was a year old by that point, and he had been able to stay for a month. She had been learning to walk, and Geralt had been able to see her take some of her first, hesitant steps. At that age, she also loved to bounce. He had been happy to hold her and let her bounce on his legs as long as she wanted to. His arms were more than strong enough to handle it. 

The next few visits were hard. Ciri was a toddler. Her complex needs, different than most toddlers, had caused Yennefer and Coën a great deal of confusion and stress; finally, she had been diagnosed as autistic. While Yennefer and Coën had managed to adapt quickly once they had support, and with surprising grace, Geralt hadn’t. He’d felt helpless, out of his depth with a child who needed things he couldn’t provide. He loved her more deeply than he’d ever loved a single living soul, but she needed a father who was a stable presence, one who was part of her routines. A father with a deep reserve of calm, and lived insight into her needs. 

Geralt had been able to stay for a month each visit, but it hadn’t ever been enough. The visits were a blur of Ciri’s screaming, tantruming, and meltdowns. Though he doted on her and was exquisitely gentle, she nevertheless threw a fit every time he got too near. She was calm enough around her mother and Coën, who she was familiar with, but her father was basically a stranger to her. 

Coën and Yennefer had tried to convince him differently, but deep down Geralt had the suspicion that he was doing something wrong to set her off so badly. He quickly became withdrawn and circumspect around his daughter. Ciri had kissed his cheek as he left though, and he still remembers the feeling of her chubby little hands patting his face as he said goodbye each visit. 

On Ciri’s fourth birthday, Geralt had been able to make it home. Sometimes he felt like it was the worst timing of his life, even though he had been grateful to see his family. He had been jet-lagged, traumatized, and exhausted, and the usually quiet house had been filled to the brim with toddlers. The noise, sudden movements, and unstable tempers of the children filling the house had overwhelmed him. He had found himself full of a sudden, blinding rage. It had terrified him. Instead of staying for cake and presents, he had gone for a run. Ciri had been crushed. 

Even though Geralt hadn’t harmed a soul, the fact that he was even capable of that kind of anger around children shattered his trust in his ability to be a safe father for his daughter. The rest of the visit had been brutal. Unable to convince himself anymore that he could keep his cool around his daughter, he’d tried to protect her by withdrawing from her. This frightened Ciri and made her try harder and harder to get his attention. 

While Geralt was mostly able to maintain a gentle air with her, there were several incidents where she had thrown things or bitten him and he’d barked at her. What he’d said had been harmless enough, if too loud, but it had caused his deeply sensitive daughter to scream with terror. Yennefer had intervened each time, and Coën had taken him for walks, but he’d never really recovered his confidence. 

The visit in 1989 had probably been the best, despite all of Geralt’s misgivings going into it. He had made it home in time for his birthday, and they had managed to have a quiet and fun celebration for him. He had received a new mixology manual and a book about horses that his daughter had picked out for him, after Yennefer had told her how much he used to like them as a boy. That had set the visit off on the right foot.

By then Ciri was six years old, and a great deal calmer as long as she was safe in her home. She had loved books, and horses, so much of their visit was consumed by trips to the library and long hours curled together on the couch, reading under a warm blanket. There were still the occasional conflagrations and blowouts when they both became overwhelmed at the same time, but Yennefer and Coën had gotten much better at heading them both off at the pass. They did their best to support Geralt as he learned new emotional skills to keep up with his daughter. When he had walked away from their door to the taxi though, Ciri had a terrible meltdown. Her howls of distress had followed him up the street, haunting him.

After that, two years had passed. By 1991, Ciri was eight years old. He had come home in time for another birthday, but this time it was an unmitigated disaster. Ciri had been hostile from the get-go, which he accepted privately was his own fault. (It was not, but nothing Yennefer said had been able to convince him otherwise.) She had been struggling with changes in her schooling and routine, and the disruption of her frequently-absent father’s visit had been the final straw. By now she was old enough to hate how often he was gone, old enough to miss him terribly. With everything else going on it had all turned to anger, the way it sometimes does in children. 

The birthday dinner itself had consisted of Ciri refusing to sit at the table with him, ripping the present she’d picked for him out of Yennefer’s hands and throwing it on the floor. The struggle had knocked Geralt’s drink into his lap, despite Coën and Yennefer’s best efforts to de-escalate the situation. When Ciri had clawed Yennefer across the face, mid-meltdown, Geralt had totally lost his composure. Much to his shame, he had reacted on instinct, hollering at her to treat her mother with some goddamn respect or he’d give her something to be sorry about. The silence had been ringing afterwards. He had pushed away from the table, apologized, and quickly exited the apartment. Coën had glanced at Yennefer and, when she nodded, he ran out the door after Geralt to talk him down. 

The rest of the visit wasn’t much better. Despite everyone’s best efforts to keep them both calm and regulated, Ciri’s absolute merciless eight year old anger and resentment and Geralt’s uneven, exhausted temper had boiled everyone raw by the time he left a month later. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had the emotional resources going in, but he had arrived traumatized and jetlagged, and Ciri had a way of getting under his skin that literally no one else in the world could.

Geralt loved children, always had, and around other people’s kids he had felt confident. That made it all the more devastating when Ciri would crack his composure and he would snap; It was easier to avoid if he was well-rested and on a routine, but on his visits home he didn’t have that. Though he was always physically gentle with her, and had never touched a hair on her head, the way Ciri would scream after he raised his voice made him physically ache. He hated himself for being the source of any of her pain. 

Worse than any of that, though, was when he tried to leave for the airport. Ciri had clung to him the whole day before, suddenly switching from rage to tearful neediness, which he also had no idea how to handle. He had let Yennefer pack his bags for him so that he could take the time to curl up with her on the couch under a blanket, like they had years before, and read her books about horses. It had been a tiny blip of peace and he still treasured the memory.

But when he brought his bag to the door the next day, Ciri had a truly epic meltdown. She had clawed his baggage apart to prevent him from leaving, and when he insisted on putting it back together, had come for _him,_ trying to rip and batter at him to keep him home. He still had a long vertical scar on his face, under his eye, from where one of her nails had ripped his skin. And when Yennefer and Coën had gently bundled Ciri up between the two of them to keep everyone safe, she had yowled at the top of her lungs that he should never come home again, that he was bad, bad, _bad!_ And he had never forgotten the look that Coën had given him, a cool look of warning, as if to say: _Add one more thing to my plate and I will deck you_ . What Geralt saw instead was: _You have hurt this child too many times, get the fuck out of this house_. Stepping back from the knot of them on the floor, he had said his goodbyes and fled. 

He hadn’t been back since. 

Partly that had been the fault of his career, which had picked up at that point. His responsibilities had escalated, and if there wasn’t time for leave, well, he wasn’t going to push. And if he’d fudged it with his commanding officers so that he could stay on duty longer than he should have… well, that was on him. It was the most cowardly thing he had ever done. As a result, he had already been afraid to face his family before the court martial even happened. The dishonorable discharge had just felt like the final straw.

He feels the bed sink next to him as Yennefer sits by his side, reaching out and gently touching the t-shirt in his hands. It’s from the London Zoo, something Ciri picked out for him when she was about five. Her elegant hand covers his, gently stilling his fidgeting.

“She misses you, you know.” Yennefer says quietly. Geralt nods mutely, eyes tracing the pattern of elephants all over the shirt. His throat bobs as he swallows hard, then clears his throat. 

“I miss her too, Yen.” 

“You could talk to her,” she reminds him gently, and he nods again. 

“I don’t want to,” he mumbles. 

“You’re afraid to,” she corrects. He shrugs and grimaces, then nods. 

“It would do her some good to hear your voice… she’s been terrified since you went missing. I told her it was just a mixup, but she really needs you, Geralt.” Yennefer reaches out and slides her arm around his waist, squeezing him close. “And I know you feel bad about what happened… but you’ve been making it worse by running, _kochany_. Time to stop.” 

Geralt’s throat tightens into a hard knot, and he looks down at the shirt in his hands. He glares at the elephants, as if spending his ire on them would make any sort of difference. When he realizes how ridiculous that is a moment later, all of the fight goes out of him and he sags. Flipping the shirt open, he slides it on over his head. 

He lays back on the bed afterward, feet still on the floor. Yennefer reaches out and strokes his stomach thoughtfully. As her hand traces idle, firm patterns she wonders what to do. Letting his eyes slide half shut, he ponders as well.

"It's probably best if we keep your conversation with her short," Yennefer says a while later, breaking the silence. She had found that giving her daughter and husband clear scripts for short phone interactions reduced anxiety for both of them. She’d gotten it down to a science by now. Geralt would never admit it, but he was just as anxious on the phone as Ciri was when he made his calls home. Yennefer had quickly gotten sick of having to juggle both Ciri and her husband losing their cool, so she’d worked out a system. "I can let her know exactly what is going to happen, that way. Keep any surprises from happening." 

Geralt nods. In this matter Yennefer has always been the expert, and he defers to her without question. He has zero trust in himself to be what his daughter needs, but Yennefer has always done her best to help him bridge the gap. Having her present, having a clear plan, makes the interactions with Ciri so much smoother. As much as he hates needing it, as much as he craves to be a normal father with normal skills, he appreciates how she always works to keep him and Ciri connected. 

After being raised by a man with a harsh tongue and a harsher outlook on life, Geralt had spent his whole life in the military. It left him ill-equipped to speak with the kind of gentleness and forethought that his daughter deserved to hear. As a result, he felt he had a tendency to put his foot in his mouth around his daughter. Yennefer’s scripts were the magic that kept him and Ciri talking during his long stretches away from home. 

"I think what I’ll do is this. I will call her, do our morning greeting conversation like we always do. Then, I will tell her a very short version of how I found you. I’m going to leave out Jaskier, because I think that’s your story to tell.” Geralt flushes awkwardly and nods again, his stomach tensing under her hand. The fear of being known by his daughter as gay is still deep and immediate for him. She glances at him and he gestures for her to continue, not wanting to talk about it. 

“Then, I am going to tell her that you are here. I will tell her that I am going to put you on the phone, and that you will tell her that you are OK and you love her. Then, I will tell her that you will hand the phone back to me, and I will finish our usual morning call. Does that sound manageable?” 

“That sounds fine,” he rumbles quietly, his voice calm even though she can feel beneath her fingers the stress he’s hiding. 

“Do you want to talk to Coën?” She asks, letting him avoid her gaze. He shifts away from her, and after a moment, rolls upright. 

“Sure,” Geralt replies uneasily. And he does, but he’s also worried about how his friend will react to all the shit he’s pulled over the last month. Coën loves him, but he isn’t one to mince words when he is upset. 

Yennefer reaches over and gently squeezes Geralt’s leg, picking up on his concern. “He’s going to be with Ciri, _mój drogi._ If you’re worried he’s going to pick a fight with you, you are _absolutely_ correct, but he’s not going to do it in front of our daughter.” 

Geralt grimaces, shaking his head. “I really did it this time, didn’t I?”

“No, _kochany._ We still love you. But you did scare the hell out of us, and he’s very angry about some of your choices.”

Geralt turns to look at Yennefer, examining her face. His own is guarded. “I guess that’s fair,” he admits reluctantly. Turning away with a shrug, he turns to look at the patterns on the carpet. As he does so, he rubs his fingers across the pink new scarring on his knuckles. The bones underneath still ache, but he barely notices it anymore.

“At least you didn’t get into a fight,” Yennefer says, eyes falling to the movement of his fingers. “When I saw the x-rays I didn’t know what to think.”

Geralt grunts and shakes his head. “No fight. Just fucked up and lost control.”

She reaches out and grabs his hand, intertwining his fingers gently with hers. “I think just about anyone would have been overwhelmed, Geralt. That was a bad day.” 

He frowns. It galls Geralt that Yennefer knows how weak he’d been, and he doesn’t want to talk about it any more. Even if she is being kind. He grimaces, but despite his instinct to pull away he stays still, letting her squeeze his fingers. Her cool skin against his feels good, a reassuring, kind feeling. 

Eyeing him, Yennefer debates whether or not to pursue the subject. In the end, she decides not to. There would be time to talk about that day again later. Instead, she says, “Ciri’s gotten a lot calmer since you last saw her. She’s been working very hard. She’s figured out a lot of her own sensory triggers now, did you know that?” 

Geralt nods cautiously. “She writes to me about it. I think she thinks about it a lot,” he observes, squinting at his hands and avoiding looking at Yennefer’s face. “I’m surprised she trusted me enough to write to me about it.”

Yennefer sighs, heartsore and exasperated. “You’ve been writing her a letter every month since she was born. Our house is filled with insane knicknacks, some of which-” she points her finger warningly at him, “have been totally age-inappropriate.” 

Geralt snorts. “Sorry,” he apologizes, cracking a rueful smile. 

“Don’t be, she still loves them. I just put them up on shelves where they won’t break,” she smiles, squeezing him affectionately again. “And she loves the movies and audio recordings of yourself that you send for her birthdays. She even has a lot of very positive memories from your visits, believe it or not. You’ve built this idea up that you’re terrible for her, but to her? You’re her hero. Of course she would trust you enough to write to you about that.” 

Geralt sinks into an uncomfortable silence, his face falling. The kind words feel wrong to him, but he knows better than to argue with Yennefer about things like this anymore. Reaching his arm out he pulls her in against his side, craving her warmth and gentle touch. 

Yennefer looks up at him from his shoulder, giving him a long, thoughtful examination. He squirms and turns his face away after tolerating it for a short while, and Yennefer snorts softly. The tension in his body is coiling tighter and tighter again, so she nudges him until he begins to rock. Better than another blowout. She keeps her arm around his waist and they sway together. At first Geralt’s breath is harsh, too quick, but as time passes the rhythmic movements work their magic and the tension slowly bleeds back out of his muscles. Eventually, she glances at the clock and pulls very softly away. 

“It’s time.” 

Geralt nods, shifting aside so that Yennefer can fully disentangle herself. Golden eyes follow her as she pads softly over to her purse and pulls out a calling card. She dials a number, waits, enters a PIN, and dials another number. As that’s ringing, Geralt rises and sits at the round grey table across from her. Yennefer reaches out with her free hand and grabs his, holding it in a reassuring grip. The look he flashes her is raw, vulnerable, and he tightens his hand in hers. 

The phone picks up. He can hear a man’s voice and recognizes it immediately, even though he can’t pick out every syllable. “Hello? Who’s this?”

“Just me, Coën.” 

“Oh hey, Yenna, good morning! Nice to hear from you! Is everyone there today?” Coën inquires. She can hear him moving, and assumes he is on his way to bring the phone to Ciri.

“Yes.” Her voice is warm, and she flashes Geralt a smile full of love. “Everyone’s here today.” She gives Geralt a gentle squeeze, and he gives her an awkward, hesitant smile in return.

“Great. Great, that’s really good to hear,” Coën replies, his voice full of relief. Though he was loath to admit it, Geralt’s disappearance had been the worst scare of his life. “Ciri honey! Your ma’s on the phone.” Over the line, Yennefer can hear a rustle and the sound of Ciri approaching. “Got your dad today, too. C’mere, baby. Ready to talk to her? She’ll fill you in.”

Yennefer’s smile widens as she hears the phone exchange hands. 

“Mum?” 

Geralt’s heart flips as he hears his daughter’s voice from across the table. Ciri’s voice pierces to the heart of him, and it always will. It’s good to hear. It wakes something in him that has been sleeping, a ferociously soft, all-consuming love. When he’d been discharged he’d gone into despair, believing that he’d never see Ciri again. Thinking that he was no longer a father, he had packed this part of himself away. To his shock and relief it’s still right there, the second he hears that muffled word. 

Yennefer takes in the suddenly intent expression on his face and feels the tension in her shoulders ease. The light is back in his eyes. His beautiful golden eyes are one of her favorite parts about him, always fiercely alight, full of intelligence and hidden humor. It had frightened her to the core when she’d looked into them in the hospital and found them dull and dim. It’s a relief to see him rekindled, and it reassures her that she’s doing the right thing putting them on the phone together. 

“Hello love.” Yennefer replies. “How has your morning been?”

Geralt listens, heartbroken and enchanted, as Ciri and Yennefer talk back and forth. They discuss Ciri’s previous day, and her plans for today. The cadence of their voices speaks of a comfortable routine, a script repeated until it’s well worn and full of solace and love. Then Yennefer tells her a heavily edited version of how she came to find Geralt. 

Geralt’s heart speeds up as Yennefer prompts Ciri with the script she’d made for her loved ones. Then, violet eyes lock with his and she gives him a serious look, as if to ask if he’s ready. He blanches but nods and takes the phone from her with a steady grip, bringing the receiver to his ear. 

“Hey, Cirilla. It’s your dad. I’m okay, I’m here with your mom.” Her name on his lips has a distinctly Polish sound, ‘Tseereellah.’ His throat feels like it’s frozen over and his fingers and lips numbly tingle as he speaks to her for the first time in months… but his voice is warm, the love he feels coming through in his tone. A soft rustle is all he can hear at first. 

Then. “Hi, Dad. Are you ok?” Ciri’s voice is soft in his ear. His heart melts the instant that he hears it, and Yennefer can see his face soften. He looks bewildered, befuddled by the affection he feels for her, frightened by how vulnerable that makes him feel. 

“I’m ok,” he reassures her. “I’m here at the hotel with your mom safe. I love you very much, Ciri.” 

She giggles on the other end of the line. “Tsee-ree,” the girl imitates happily. “I like it when you say it like that, Dad. I love you too.” To Yennefer, it looks like he can’t tell if he wants to laugh or cry. He pulls his hand back from hers to rub his face, hiding his expression from her. 

“Have a good day, _kochany._ I’m going to hand the phone back to your mom now,” he rumbles gently, his voice suspiciously thick, then hands Yennefer back the phone. Every fiber in him wants to go run, but he has already committed to talking to Coën, so he fidgets uncomfortably instead. Yennefer makes eye contact with him and makes a little circle in the air with her finger, then holds it up as if to say ‘once.’ 

He understands immediately. It wasn’t always possible to run, so he’d adapted some of his physical training exercises for small spaces as a way to compensate. He nods and goes over to the middle of the room, dropping to his stomach and then starting to do a series of movements that put deep resistance into his joints. He has to favor his healing hand, but it’s not hard to compensate. The routine itself is familiar, easy to vanish into. The pressure and the burn of his muscles gives him something tangible to focus on. As he moves, the uneasy energy coiling in his body rapidly settles. 

Yennefer eyes him for a moment, then, satisfied, returns to her conversation with Ciri. Unlike her daughter, Geralt has an overwhelming fear of meltdown. As a result, it is easier to convince him to ground himself out than it ever had been with their daughter. Seeing that the tension is going back out of him, she’s able to put her full focus into the last few minutes with Ciri. When she sees Geralt begin to wind up his routine, she says her goodbyes. Then Coën gets on the line and she turns to look at Geralt. He rises and returns to sit with her, his cheeks flushed, the set of his body relaxed and steady. When Yennefer hands him the phone, he takes it and cradles it against his ear. 

“Hey, brother.” Coën’s voice cuts across the distance from London, grave and gentle. “How’s it going? We missed you.” Geralt can hear the gentle reproof in the last sentence, and he winces. 

“I missed you too,” he says quietly, then falls silent, his throat constricting. There were too many things to say. He couldn’t say any of them. If he started, he was going to fall apart.

Coën waits for a while to see if there will be more. When there isn’t, he says, “How’s everything going out there? I hear you’ve had some crazy luck, buddy. You’re going to have to tell me about it next time I see you.” 

Geralt gives a low chuckle, his voice rough. “I will. You been taking good care of our girls?” 

“Nothing but the best, man. You know it. Been taking care of yourself?”

“Sure,” Geralt replies noncommittally. “You?” 

“Sure, I do pretty good. Got a nice place to run out here. Ciri’s starting to join me, that’s been fun.”

“That sounds really great,” Geralt replies, feeling a twist of longing and regret. It should be him out there running with Ciri, not Coën. Unable to bear continuing the conversation, he says, “I won’t keep you, Coën, it sounds like you and Ciri have a busy day ahead of you.”

“You know it man, gotta keep those young minds growing. Listen, Yenna tells me things might go well out there for you. Good luck, right? She’s gonna keep me updated. You got my number if you need anything, ok brother? I’m always here.” Coën speaks carefully to avoid giving too much away to Ciri, but it warms Geralt to know that Coën supports him. Yen must have told him about Jaskier. He cuts a quick glance at her, wondering how much Coën knows. Given how close Coën and Yennefer are… probably everything. 

“Ok, man. Thank you.” Geralt says quietly. Then, “Give Ciri a hug and kiss for me.”

“Will do. Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah.” 

Geralt hands the phone back to Yennefer and goes to the bathroom, running the sink so that he can’t hear the rest of the short conversation. He washes his face with cool water, runs it over his hands. His insides feel like they are racing, short and gentle though the conversation with his brother had been. 

Even though Coën is a few years younger than both Yennefer and Geralt, he has always been a kind and grounding presence for both of them. Hands down, he is one of the most positive relationships Geralt has ever had. Knowing that he’s disappointed and frightened Coën leaves Geralt feeling scared and sad. He waits until he hears Yennefer’s voice stop before turning off the taps and drying himself. When he emerges from the bathroom she looks up at him, violet eyes softer than usual. 

“Everything ok?” 

He shrugs, heading for the bed and crawling into it. Her eyes flick over him, then to the clock. It’s well past 0300, and he’s been in the States longer than she has. He’s probably exhausted. Her own body clock hasn’t recovered from jet lag yet. Part of her is still in London, waking up and starting the day. The part of her that’s here, though, is exhausted. Rising, she joins him in the bed. They reach out and turn out their bedside lamps, then curl together in the thick darkness just before the dawn. 

“Are you okay?” she repeats, her voice breaks the silence. She tucks her head under his chin more comfortably, then slides her hands up under his shirt to rest on his warm skin. 

Geralt’s stomach jumps at the unexpected contact, then relaxes into the comfort of her touch. He heaves a soft sigh, nuzzling the top of her head. “It was good to hear her voice. Him too.” He still feels heartbroken, crushingly lonely. But for the first time in a long time he also feels hope, a little tiny light kindled deep within his heart. His family is still his, they still love and want him. Maybe everything isn’t quite as broken as he thought it was.

Yennefer smiles against his chest, tracing an idle circle on his back under his shirt. “I’m glad they got to hear you. They’re both happier now… they love you so much.” He huffs into her hair, shifting again to try and deal with the discomfort of that statement. She squeezes him gently, letting him process in blessed silence. 

A while later he says, “What are we going to do? If…” 

“If things go well with your idiot?”

“Stop calling him that,” Geralt snorts, mildly annoyed, but she can hear his smile in the darkness. 

“I will when he shows me more than a glimmer of intelligence,” she teases gently. She can feel the tiny movement of a silent chuckle. Shifting back a little, she tips her head back to look at him. Her violet eyes study his face in the darkness.

“If things go well, Coën thinks we should just move Ciri here. Keep the family together.” She kisses his chest. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. We could get a month to month for us to start… and if things take off between you two, we can scale up to a larger one and bring them over. Besides, if things don’t pan out, then we’ll all be together to figure it out. Ciri’s been all over the world with us. Another move isn’t going to throw her nearly as much as not being able to see you.” Under her fingers, Yennefer can feel Geralt’s body tense again. He looks at the curtains behind her, studying them intently. 

“Okay,” he says cautiously, after a long moment. “I want to think about it before I decide.” He presses his face back into her hair, pulling her close. 

She relaxes, pressing herself against him. “I do, too. We have some time to figure it out, there’s no rush just yet. Let’s sleep on it, _moj drogì._ ” Heaving a tired sigh, she nuzzles his collarbone and breathes in the scent of him, clean from the shower and mingling with the orange blossom smell on his shirt. A peace rolls over her, and she closes her eyes. She can feel him nod, and she smiles sleepily, squeezing him one last time before allowing herself to begin to drift. 

In his arms, Geralt can feel Yennefer’s body go heavy and limp, her breathing evening out. Though he’s exhausted, sleep evades him. He mulls on the recent events, allowing the feelings and images to flow through him, working on allowing them to integrate. It’s slow going. Eventually, somewhere around true dawn, he finally falls into a deep sleep. 

Geralt awakens later that day to find that he is alone. He has a vague recollection of movement earlier, of feeling cold as Yennefer had left the bed, but she tended to wake before he did and he’d learned to tune it out a long time ago. The room is rich with the smell of coffee from the coffee maker. As he sits up on his elbow, he can see a neatly folded pile of athletic clothing atop which sits a brightly colored package. Interest piqued, he pushes the rest of the way up off of the bed and walks over to inspect it. The package turns out to be a small gift bag laying on its side with a note on top of it. 

_Geralt-_

_Gone to do a few errands. I will be back by lunch time._

_Go to the gym. Enjoy your present._

_See you soon._

_Love,_

_Y_

Geralt smiles and opens the package, curious. Inside is a green leatherbound book bearing the title, A Bon Vivant’s Companion Guide on How to Mix Drinks. He flips open the first page and sees a used bookstore business card tucked inside, then scans the page itself. The guide, it turns out, is a replica of the first cocktail book ever printed. This particular one is the 1867 edition. His smile broadens to a grin. 

Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Geralt sits down and begins paging slowly through it, savoring the old book smell and the soft rustle of the pages between his fingers. Happily diverted, he spends the better part of an hour drinking coffee and reading through recipes and commentary from more than a century before. 

When he finishes his coffee, he reluctantly sets the book aside. His whole body is still heavy with depression and full of a dull, gnawing ache. The prospect of exercising is daunting, but he knows that if Yennefer gets back and finds him still sitting on his ass, she will find ways to make him regret his life choices. She may be deeply loving, but her patience is limited and he’s been burning through it like kindling lately. He _does_ need to exercise and he knows it, so this is one battle he’s not going to pick. 

Heaving a sigh, he gets up and shuffles off to the bathroom. He washes his coffee cup conscientiously, dries it, then comes back into the main room and sets it back near the coffee maker. Then he sweeps the maker itself off of the grey counter and returns to the bathroom. He sets it on the counter, delicately pulls it apart, and cleans every piece with precision. The damn thing is filthy with old oil, and it’s been making even his good coffee taste like burnt store brand grounds. 

The final piece slides onto the coffee maker with a comforting ‘click’ a few minutes later. He places it back on the counter, pleased. Then he dons his new athletic clothing, grabs his room key and water bottle, and heads to the hotel gym. It’s mid morning by then, and the gym is busier at this time of day. There’s a few scattered people, but not enough to bother him. He takes a long pull from his water bottle before heading to the mat in the back to do his warmups. Occasionally he feels a set of eyes on him, but he steadfastly ignores them until they turn away again. 

When he is done warming up, he moves through the rest of his exercise routine, methodical, slow, precise. It helps him wake up, helps him blot out all the unwanted thoughts and emotions that he’s unable to process. He finishes with a long run on the treadmill, slow and steady, eating up miles under his long legs. As he runs, he feels some of the distress and tension finally beginning to work its way out of his body, leaving him clearer headed than he’s been in months, possibly longer. 

By the time he returns to the room, Yennefer is perched at the little round table in the back of the room. She smiles when she sees him and points to the shower. He grins, walking towards her and holding his arms out, playfully threatening to hug her to his sweaty chest. Crying out in mock disgust, she grabs a piece of hotel stationery off of the table and wads it up in a ball. It hits him in the shoulder and he stops with a laugh, bending over to pick it up and toss it into the trash can. 

“When you get out of the shower,” she pauses pointedly, wrinkling her nose, “Let’s get some lunch.” 


	11. What Would I Do Without You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! Getting this chapter in order was uphill both ways in the snow, but @stressedspidergirl is amazingly patient and insightful and got this chapter through the weeds and out the other side. (THANK YOU SO MUCH.)
> 
> Yennefer's visit throws Jaskier for a hard loop. His best friend helps him sort it out. Best Friend Rating of the Geralt Incident? 10/10 top notch Jaskier fuckery. She loves her disaster queer. 
> 
> CW for drinking, smoking, implied death of an original character, grieving

On the day of Yennefer’s visit, Jaskier arrives at work on a bicycle. He’s late and on a bicycle for the same reason, which is to say, he is drunk and cannot drive his car. He is drunk because he’d been so full of mixed emotions after Yennefer left that he’d sat down to eat the rest of the fruit and whipped cream. Somewhere in there, it had seemed like a brilliant idea to pour half a bottle of bourbon after it. 

It was not. Luckily for him, the person working the bar tonight is Julia.

She is a stocky woman in her mid-forties. She has tawny skin and skeptical hazel eyes, and there’s a kind twist to her lips that she often hides. She has a tuft of cropped blue hair and wears a denim vest with a white t-shirt. Even though she is exasperated when he staggers through the door, she feeds him a sandwich and coffee while she fills him in on the meeting he missed. From there, she lets the crew in for the night. 

Jaskier feels like the whole world is an itchy sweater, even after the sandwich and coffee. It’s like his brain is on fire, and he can’t quite settle into the usual friendly chatter that his job requires. He passes an irritable and lonely night out by the door. By the time it’s time to clock out most of the staff is eager to clear out from underfoot; Jaskier is a great boss, but when his nearly infinite good humor runs out he can be a real asshole.

The only one who doesn’t give a fuck is Julia. She knew from the second she saw him wheeling in the door that it was going to be a late night, so she lets the rest of the staff out before pouring herself a big glass of gin. Then she settles her elbows against the bar, watching Jaskier mop the dancefloor. He is flailing wildly with the mop, clearing the floor with brutal inefficiency. Internally she begins to count down the time until he knocks the bucket over. Sure enough, a moment later he does just that. She nods in satisfaction, pleased that her timing is still on point. 

Jaskier throws his head back and lets out a shout of pure frustration as his poorly-contained feelings boil over at last. Julia smirks and grabs a bunch of towels, then ambles over to him and starts tossing them on the floor to soak up the mess. 

As she does so she says nothing, but the look she gives him makes him feel transparent. Jaskier avoids her eyes as he tosses some towels down onto the puddle. 

Julia gives a little harrumph, unimpressed, bending to help him clear the towels away. They right the bucket and clean the floor in silence. When they’re done, she turns to him and gives him a long look. 

“So… What’s eating you?”

Jaskier grumbles and straightens. “Nothing.” He hauls the bucket away, fills it with water, and returns. Without making eye contact he begins to mop again.

Julia hums, crossing her arms. “Yeah, and nothing made you stink like bourbon, too. Cough it up.” She leans against a nearby wall, giving him a skeptical look. He looks at her from under the fringe of hair that has fallen over his face. Something about the wide-eyed, guilty glances that he keeps shooting her makes him look sixteen again. She smirks. “I think you wanna tell me but you’re embarrassed, so how about I start making guesses?”

Going pale, Jaskier groans. “ _ Why _ are you so hell-bent on pushing my buttons?” The last thing he wants is Julia making guesses about what is bothering him. She has a terrible habit of being accurate and she has a memory like an elephant.

“Because you’re not a dumbass kid anymore and you haven’t shown up drunk in years. You missed an important meeting! What the fuck, Jaskier? Don’t make me call you Julian, I swear to fucking god I’ll break out your birth name.”

“Julia…!” Jaskier protested. “I d-”

“Julian Alfred P-”

“Fine! Stop! Oh my god, you are  _ merciless! _ ” Jaskier cries, but secretly he’s glad that she cares enough to needle him. He stops and holds the mop for a moment, blowing his hair out of his eyes as he gathers his thoughts. Then he starts pushing it across the floor again. “I’m sure you heard about the man who rescued Pride this year.”

“Heh, I feel like I’ve met him. Yarpen won’t shut up. Heard from him recently?” She narrows her eyes at him, sure that she’s about to hear some sort of horny idiot story. 

Jaskier blushes hotly, confirming Julia’s suspicions. “Well, funny thing about that.”

“What did you do now?” Julia asks, smirking. She retreats to the bar and picks up her tumbler of gin, then lights a cigarette. 

“We-e-elll…” Jaskier prevaricates.

Julia gives him a long look, and he folds. 

“Um, so I might have brought him back to my house after Pride.”

Julia barks a short laugh. “Color me not surprised. What’s the problem? Is he why you were wearing that birdy when you came in?”. 

Jaskier’s flush deepens. “I meant to take that off before his wife showed up. After that my day got all sort of… muddled.”

“You mean you got chewed out and then got drunk, right?”

“No! You know what, Julia? She yelled at me when I met her in the hospital, but when she came to my house she was…” He pauses, seeing the bewildered look on Julia’s face. “All right, let me back up and explain. He broke his hand, and I had to take him to the hospital. Two weeks later we go for his followup appointment and his wife is there waiting for him. Tracked him down all the way from fucking England! Got the third degree from her there, but the wildest part is, she showed up at my house the next day to  _ talk.  _ About me  _ dating  _ him.”

Julia laughs again, harder and longer. “What the fuck, Jaskier?”

Despite himself, Jaskier breaks into a rueful grin.“Right? Seriously though Julia. If I talk to you about this it stays strictly between you and me, got it? All of it. He’s in the closet and no one else here needs to know  _ any _ of this.”

“You got it. No gossip. Your secrets are my secrets.” Julia smiles crookedly, sipping at the last of her gin. She’s been keeping Jaskier’s shit to herself since he was a teen. At first, it was out of a desire to not get involved, but by now she genuinely likes the dingbat. He’s dumb but sweet, and he’s been good to her. “So what’s the deal, kiddo?”

“So what it all boiled down to is that she’s not mad at me for sleeping with him… she’s mad I slept with him  _ so fast. _ Turns out she’s okay with me seeing him again.”

Julia puts her glass down on the bartop, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Okay, that is a new one on me, I gotta admit. What’s the story there? She into watching or something?”

A surprised laugh escapes Jaskier. “No, thank fucking god, I don’t think I’d survive. This woman… oh Julia, you should have seen her. She’s like, five foot four inches of lightning in a bottle. A total force of nature. I think she could snap me like a twig.” A wry twinkle comes into his eye as Julia’s eyebrow goes up.

Smirking, Julia taps some ash off of her cigarette. “Sounds like a hell of a woman.”

Jaskier snorts, cutting her an amused look. “She is, but I don’t think you’d get very far with her. She’s asexual.”

“Oh? The plot thickens.” Julia grins wolfishly, leaning her chin on her hand. Jaskier had a way of getting up to his neck in crazy situations, and it had become something of a spectator sport for her over the years. 

Flushing with embarrassment, a crooked grin flickers across Jaskier’s face. “Yeah, well.” He turns his glass in a full circle. “So it turns out, they uh… have a kid together. And I want you to understand how terrifying this woman was because there was no way in hell I was going to ask for more details. But. What she told me was this. They got married because of their daughter, but Geralt… her husband, the man I was sleeping with… He’s gay.”

“Oh man, you really have a way of finding them, don't you?" This is top-notch Jaskier fuckery, it really is. She’s glad she’d stayed to get the story out of him, even though she knew it meant that she’d be dragged into his shit sooner rather than later. 

“I really do,” Jaskier agrees with a little groan. 

“What’s her name?” 

“Yennefer.”

“Hm. Nice names. Yennefer and Geralt. So she got mad at you for sleeping with Geralt so fast, and then what?” 

“And then, Julia! She told me that she’d always hoped that he’d find someone special. She looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘maybe someone like you’ and I just lost my mind. Just- Pow!” He makes an exploding gesture out from his head with his hands, then shakes his head and returns to mopping. 

“Wow. That was  _ not _ the reaction I was expecting.”

“Yeah.  _ Yeah! _ No kidding! Apparently, he’s always been free to choose his lovers. He’s never wanted to bring one home before, though.”

Julia lets out a low whistle, her eyebrows going up. “So he  _ likes _ you, likes you. And his wife is… okay with this?”

“I don’t think she likes me very much, Julia, but she gave me the phone number to their hotel room. Says I should have a real talk with him before I think about dating him.” He stalks past her into the kitchen to dump out the dirty mop water.

“Just like that?” Julia laughs, leaning in the doorway.

“Threatened to bury my dead body if I didn’t treat him right, in those exact words,” Jaskier says over his shoulder.

Julia leans against the doorframe, shaking with mirth. “Oh my fucking god, Jaskier.”

“I know!” Jaskier cries, flinging his hands up. “This is absurd, Julia! And you know what’s even more ridiculous? I really think I could fall for him, I really do. He’s just so…” He sighs, tossing the mop and bucket in their corner and washing his hands.

“Yeah, Yarpen wouldn’t shut up about him. Six feet plus, white hair, amber eyes, stacked? Sounds very striking.” Julia drawls, eyebrows arching. 

“No, Julia- Well, I mean,  _ yes, _ but…” He walks back out to the bar, flopping onto one of the tall stools.

“But what?” She smirks, returning to the bar and tapping out her ash.

“Well, I was gonna say beautiful, but I didn’t mean it like that.” Jaskier puffs, drumming his hands on the bar top, trying to find a way to put it. “Like… ohh, I sound like a fool, but he feels like a warm hearth. I just wanna curl up next to him with a book and a cup of tea and fall asleep because I feel so good around him.  _ Safe. _ And don’t you go telling me he’s a stranger-” Jaskier breaks off as Julia rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to speak. “I know that! I know, and that’s what makes it so weird, Julia. But like, good weird.”

Julia hums thoughtfully, tipping her head to the side. Jaskier has been getting more self-aware as he ages, and for once, she’s inclined to believe that he remembers this guy’s a stranger. “Have you called your therapist yet?”

“For once in my life, yes. I called her before I came in. Hopefully, she’ll have gotten back to me by the time I get home.”

“Good for you. So this is why you came in here drunk off your ass this morning? This whole mess?” She pours him a shot glass of rum and passes it to him.

He takes it with a nod of thanks. “Yeah… I guess I got a little freaked out after his wife grilled me this morning, didn’t cope with it well.” Taking a sip, he frowns. “Julia, I’m in over my head. I don’t really know what to do here. He’s never had a boyfriend before.” 

Letting out a low whistle between her teeth, Julia stubs out her cigarette. “Ain’t he about my age?” 

“Yeah… He’s… I guess he spent his whole adult life in the military and never let himself have one. That’s what his wife said.” Jaskier worries at his lip, blue eyes wide as he shoots a glance at Julia. His glass scrapes on the bar top. 

Annoyed by the sound, Julia tosses him a coaster. Then she hums thoughtfully, swirling the dregs of gin in her glass. “That’s a long time to be lonely.”

Puffing out a long, slow breath, Jaskier nods. He draws the coaster over and sticks it under his drink with a guilty look. “Yeah.” Slumping to the bar top, he puts his chin on his hands. “She said… if I cheated on him it would crush him. She said… ‘Please don’t make things worse by being irresponsible with his very fragile heart.’” Putting his face into his arms, Jaskier gives a little groan. 

Julia sucks in a breath, watching Jaskier crumple in front of her. He’d at least grasped the concept of fidelity by now, but until recently his romances had never been particularly stable. Her heart goes out to him. She finds herself walking around to the other side of the bar to stand awkwardly by his side, her stocky frame only coming up to his shoulder where he sits on the stool. She awkwardly pats said shoulder, then gives it a squeeze. “That’s gotta feel pretty big to you. How are you doin’ with it?”

“I’m feeling massively intimidated, Julia. He’s gorgeous and I really want to date him, but I’m really afraid I’m going to be bad for him. I don’t exactly have the most amazing track record.”

Julia hums, sucking her teeth thoughtfully. She rubs a gentle circle between Jaskier’s shoulderblades, an unusually affectionate gesture for her. “Kiddo, you know I wouldn’t say this normally, but you’ve put a damn ton of work into your personal relationships. I trust the man you’ve grown into, and I think you should try trusting yourself for once. See how it works out for you. It’s been a long time since you let anyone in _. _ ”

Jaskier sighs, leaning into the touch. “I know. I worked so hard, and Rue didn’t even get to see much of my life after the dust settled. I hope she’s proud of me.”

A smile lights Julia’s face, but as she speaks a note of grief creeps into her voice. Her partner Rue had passed two years ago, but the pain was still fresh and hot. Rue had been more than a friend to Jaskier, she’d been his absolute favorite person. He missed her almost as dearly as Julia herself did. 

“She’d be proud of you all ‘round, kiddo. You’ve really shaped up. Hell, you stepped up when I needed you.” She gives Jaskier a little shake. “You might be a dumbass, but it matters that you try to get things right. It matters more that you do your best now to fix it when you don’t. That’s all anyone can do.” Julia’s hand moves back to his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “You’re a good man, and I think she’d tell you that, too.”

Jaskier nods, swallowing hard. As Julia’s hand closes on him he realizes all of a sudden how much he misses Rue. His heart contracts with terrible grief. “Oh!” He gasps, surprised by the abruptness of the pain. Reaching back to squeeze Julia’s hand, he can feel his throat tightening. “I feel really lost right now. She’d know what to do.”

A crack appears in Julia’s heart. She nods and steps closer to Jaskier, reaching around his hip and pulling him close. Jaskier leans into her and she grips him tightly with her strong arm. Her cheek presses against him and she squeezes her eyes shut, nodding. “Me too _. _ I miss her like hell.” As she grips Jaskier, silent tears dampen his cheeks. Before long, Julia’s eyes begin to well over too.

Rue had been the center of both of their lives. Julia had been in love with her since they met one hot summer on Coney Island as teenagers. They had kissed in the rain under one of the piers, and that had been it for her. By the time they’d moved in together as adults, Julia would have gone down on one knee and married her in a heartbeat. 

Every summer they took a long vacation on Fire Island, where Julia would pick up part time work as a bartender. They’d met Jaskier one summer there when he was just sixteen years old. He’d been a disaster of a baby queer, but gregarious little Rue had seen something of herself in him. She had taken him under her wing, and he had thrived.

When Rue was diagnosed with ovarian cancer four years ago, it had been at a quiet time in Julia’s life. Jaskier had gotten a therapist a year before and was finally out of her hair. The bar was thriving. Rue and Julia had settled into their home just the way they’d liked it, tea settees and all. Julia remembers looking at this yellow, gold, and cream-colored doily on their tea table after they got home from Rue’s diagnosis. The little sunburst pattern had seared into her mind as she sat in shock. 

The following two years had been hell on a plate. The bar came closer to folding than it ever had as both Julia and Jaskier bent themselves completely out of shape trying to get Rue the care she needed. In the end, that had meant hospice and a funeral. Jaskier had ended up having to plan it for her, and he’d stepped up to the role with a seriousness that she hadn’t thought him physically capable of. It changed something about his personality. Julia watched him go almost overnight from a happy-go-lucky kid to a closed-off and responsible adult. The only exception had happened shortly after Rue’s death. 

When the fuss from the funeral had died down, Jaskier had disappeared for the better part of two weeks. Scheduled everyone in, made sure payroll was cued to go properly, and just… vanished. He’d come back with a bloody lip and fear in his eyes, and Julia had been too heartsick to ask questions. That night they’d grieved Rue together, sitting next to one another and crying their eyes out. Jaskier had fallen asleep on their dinky little couch, and she’d tucked one of Rue’s crocheted blankets over him before she went to bed. 

Since then Jaskier had been eerily quiet. At least, until Pride. After that his mood had been so pleasant that it was making Julia downright nervous. She’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now, at last, it had. 

Jaskier takes a few napkins out from under the bar top, passing them to Julia. They wipe their faces in sticky silence, and afterward, Julia pulls out a smoke and hands him one too. The click of her lighter is loud in the silent bar, echoing off the far walls. 

“Can you imagine what she’d say about this mess?” he asks, a soft huff of laughter escaping him as he shakes his head. His wide blue eyes turn up to take in the fairy lights over the bar, the smoke twisting among them.

“Oh! I can just imagine.” Julia chuckles damply, shaking her head. “She always said you found love in the strangest places.” 

Jaskier smiles crookedly. “She’s not wrong.” Smoke drifts from the cigarette between his long fingers, swirling eddies forming as it rises. 

Julia nods, then blows a slow, lazy smoke ring. “She’d say… don’t listen to your heart anymore. Don’t listen to your head. You’ve heard enough from them for now. Go find someplace quiet, where the silence can slip in through the cracks of you and fill you up. Sometimes the answer slips in alongside the silence." 

The damp groan of chagrin that escapes Jaskier makes Julia smile. "That's right,” he replies, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “And I would say, I hate silence, it makes me nervous."

Julia nods, amused. "And she would say-" Jaskier's voice joined Julia's and they finished together, "There's your problem right there." 

With a damp chuckle, Jaskier shakes his hair out of his eyes and blinks away the last of his tears. “Oh lord, Julia. I’m glad you’re still here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Suffer.” Julia jokes, knocking back her gin. “Suffer and die, probably.”

“Crash and burn, at the very least.” Jaskier snorts. He knocks back his glass of rum, then rises at last from the bar. He stubs out his cigarette as he rises. Then, with a soft clinking, he gathers all the glasses and takes them back to the sink to wash. A hush falls over the room, broken only by the splash of water against the metal sink.

Julia turns to watch him, leaning her elbows against the counter. Her head tips to the side as she watches Jaskier dry the dishes, then start scrubbing at the already-clean sink. He takes sanitizer and sprays it on a towel, then starts trying to evict the microscopic grit left around the base of the faucet. After a while, she stirs. “You think this guy might be it?” she asks, her eyes soft as she tips her head to look at her friend.

Jaskier looks down at the wet towel dripping in his hands. “I don’t know. I just… he’s different. I feel really different around him. I think I want to try, but I’m trying to just...” He grimaces, tossing the towel into the bin with a little too much force. “Take a minute to look before I leap.” 

Julia breaks into a wry smile, hazel eyes sparkling with gentle humor. “Good for you. Does that mean I’m gonna be staying late a few more nights?” 

“Could you? I could use the company.” Jaskier looks at her out of the corner of his eye, moving on to wipe the counter. 

Julia scoffs, but there’s a playful note in her voice. “Fine, but you gotta cough up those kreteks you've been teasing me with. You owe me.”

“Oh! I actually have those back at my house, thank you for reminding me!" Jaskier exclaims, smacking his forehead. "I can't believe I forgot. I’ll bring them in tomorrow, I got you a whole case. They came in from Indonesia last week and I just spaced out about them what with everything else going on.”

Eyes lighting up, Julia socks Jaskier affectionately on the shoulder. “Hey! My man! That’s what I’m talking about.” 

Jaskier laughs, rubbing his shoulder. “Anytime. It's the least I can do.”

Julia takes one last drag off of her cigarette, then turns to stub it out. “Listen. You want a ride home? It’s late.”

Jaskier wavers, then turns to look at the storeroom where his bike is. It’s a long ride home in the cold and dark, and he’s heartsick as all hell. It’s hard to turn her down. “Got room in your trunk for my bike?”

“Yep. No sweat. I’ll pull the car around front while you shut down.” Julia pats her pockets, making sure that her wallet, keys, and cigarettes are all in place. 

By the time she’s parked in front, Jaskier is locking the door of the bar. They wordlessly wrestle the bike into the back of the car together, working with the ease of practice. In the car, Julia flips on the stereo and pops in a Patti Smith cassette. Patti’s smoky, dry voice floats through the car, twining through the bouncing and jangling guitar riffs of the opening song of the album.  _ Oh, she looks so fine… I’m gonna uh-uh, make her mine…  _

They drive home in comfortable silence. Julia pulls up behind Jaskier’s car and parks. She eyes the white truck in the driveway silently, finishing her smoke as she considers it. Jaskier sits beside her, making no move to get out of the car. Finally, she stubs out her smoke and says, “Is that his?”

Jaskier nods. “Engine keeps overheating. He knows what’s wrong with it but I don’t have the tools for him to fix it, so it’s gonna stay there until I can get them for him. Honestly I don’t have the faintest idea what he wants, it all goes in my ear and then out the other. If he’d just let me take him to the store it would be fine but no-”

Putting her hand on the door, Julia eyes Jaskier kindly. “Kiddo, I don’t need every single detail. It’s his truck, I get it. Let’s go in.”

Jaskier puffs as he’s thrown off track. Then he smiles crookedly, face catching in a bar of orange light from the streetlamp outside. “Sorry. You go on in, I’ve got to bring the bike around back.”

Flourishing her keys, Julia nods. She ambles around the front of Jaskier’s house and unlocks his door, letting herself into the dark entryway. Flicking on the lights, she looks around. The place is uncannily clean and stinks of floor wax and furniture oil. Jaskier’s home usually looks a bit rumpled, like a bed that’s been slept in and then had the covers thrown back into place without being smoothed or tucked. Not dirty, precisely, but not clean. Lived in. This, though… she gives a low whistle under her teeth. Her friend had been understating the distress he’d been experiencing. His home didn’t get this tidy unless something really got under his skin.

She kicks her boots off and heads to the kitchen to get a pot of coffee going, then snags a pudding out of the fridge. As she’s digging around for a spoon, she hears the jingle of keys announcing Jaskier’s arrival through the back door. 

He notes the pudding cup in her hand and the very corner of his mouth turns up, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he slips past her to drop his bag in his bedroom. When he returns to the kitchen he smiles at her, leaning against the fridge.

“Better?” she asks, tearing open the plastic lid.

“Better,” Jaskier agrees, eyes dancing with a teasing light. “Still like the taste of stolen pudding?”

“Tastes better if you swipe it,” Julia grins unrepentantly. She settles on the stool with her pudding. “Gonna cough up those kreteks?”

Jaskier grins. “You’ve got it. Just a minute, darling. I have to figure out where I put them.” He turns on his foot and bounds off to the other end of his house, rummaging around until he remembers where he stuck the package. It turns out it’s still next to the front door in plain view, hidden on a shelf by the other oddities it’s been stuck on top of. Jaskier’s house is unusually clean, but it isn’t  _ that _ clean. Making a triumphant noise, he grabs it and heads back towards Julia. 

Pleased, Julia opens the case up in a few quick movements and takes out a carton. She flicks it open, smelling it with great satisfaction. The rich smell of clove and tobacco wafts up to her, and she sighs in contentment. “Ah, that’s the good shit. Thanks, man.”

“You’ve got it. I’ll order more tomorrow, you deserve them. Takes them a while to import but we should be seeing them in the next month or so.” 

Julia laughs. “Man, I’m earning them signing up to listen to your shit like this. Go check your message machine, I ain’t subbing in for your therapist.”

Jaskier huffs a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. “Fine, fine, I’ve got it.” He pours himself a cup of coffee, then ambles over to the message machine and picks up the receiver. He punches in a code and waits, then jots something down on a pad of paper next to it with a brief smile flashing across his face. He turns back to Julia, wiggling the notepad at her. “Got an appointment tomorrow before I go to work. She shoehorned me into her lunch hour.”

“Huh,” Julia grunts, amused. “Better bring that poor woman lunch, she’s a saint for taking you back like that on short notice.”

Jaskier looks chagrined. He settles himself back on a stool with his back to the refrigerator. “Yeah, you're not wrong. Best kind of saint. I thought I’d bring her Thai from that place up on Market street. You know the one with the little golden treasure bag dumpling things?”

“Man, she gets treasure bags? Do I get some?” Julia teases.

“If you come hold my hand tomorrow, you get anything you want.”

“Mm, no dice. I’m doing enough hand-holding as it is. Speaking of which, you could still bring it to me at the bar...” she grins over her mug, eyes sparkling playfully.

Jaskier rolls his eyes and sighs. “Extortionist.” 

“You love me,” she snorts.

“I do,” he breaks out into a smile, leaning against the island top with his elbows. “Thanks for running me home.”

Julia shifts in her seat and sighs, leaning forward onto her elbows and giving Jaskier a frank look. “I got you, it’s no problem. It’s not every day you get blown out of the water by something like this. You gonna be ok?”

Jaskier considers his mug with a thoughtful moue, then nods. “I think I am, Julia. I’m sorry about this morning, it won’t happen again.”

Smirking, Julia shrugs. “Just do better.”

Fluffing the hair on the back of his neck, Jaskier nods. “You got it.” He takes a thoughtful sip of his coffee, then asks, “How are you doing?” His voice is gentle as he asks the question, sensitive to the ongoing nature of her pain.

Julia shifts uneasily, squinting at her mug. “I dunno. I’m making it. Don’t wanna look for a new place yet, but I know it’s gonna be time soon.” She casts a short, hard-to-read look at Jaskier. She appreciates him asking, but she’s also not sure how much she wants to talk.

“When’s the lease up?” Jaskier asks, his eyes soft. 

“Uhm…” Julia cleared her throat. “June.”

“Julia!" Jaskier gasps, exasperated. "That was over a month ago! You didn’t just sign a new one, did you? Why didn’t you talk to me first?” 

“I didn’t wanna talk about it,” Julia growls, scowling.

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t get all growly with me. You’re miserable there! Rue is all over that place, darling! I can barely turn around twice in there without bumping into something that breaks my heart, I don't know how you go and live there every day."

Julia presses her lips together, tapping her carton of kreteks between her fingers. She shrugs. "I can't imagine being anywhere else. All I have left is there."

Heart breaking a little, Jaskier sighs. He regards Julia kindly. "You can't hold on like that forever." 

Scowling, Julia shrugs. That might be true, but she didn’t have to like it.

Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Jaskier looks her over for a moment. He hesitates, then says, "Why don't you just start looking? There's no harm in at least checking the paper…" he nudges her gently. "Worst that can happen is you don't fall in love with the first place you see. No harm, right?"

Julia shuffles uncomfortably, taking a big gulp of her coffee. She frowns at her cup, then looks out of the corner of her eye at Jaskier. “I can’t afford to break the lease.”

“Nonsense, you’ve got plenty of savings to cover shit like that,” Jaskier replies, still exasperated.    
“Besides, even if you didn’t, I’d cover you. You know that!”

“I know…” Julia grumbles, “But-”

“So what you mean is, you’re still stuck and you’re not ready to go yet.”

Julia scowls. She wants desperately to argue with him, to lash out and protect herself, but the impulse passes before the words can even form. She shrugs. “Maybe so.” 

Jaskier sighs. “Julia darling, I’m convinced there’s a place in the world for you. Somewhere that will feel good and be just for you. Who knows, maybe you’ll even meet someone soon? Stranger things have happened.”

“Stranger things can eat my ass,” Julia snaps.

Unimpressed, Jaskier shrugs. “Okay.” He pops open his pudding cup and spoons up a mouthful, sucking it off of his spoon thoughtfully. “Mm. Should you ever decide to come out of that suck-ass hedge-maze of grumpiness you’ve built for yourself I’ll be here. I love you, despite all your best efforts to turn into an unmanageable troll.” 

“Oh what, and you’re Prince Charming?” Julia scoffs. “Puh-lease, you little drama queen.” They both eye each other for a moment, wavering, then break out in quiet laughter. Jaskier reaches over and pats her hand, and Julia smiles crookedly. She drains the last of her mug, then sets it down with a final-sounding ‘thunk.’ “All right,  _ mijo. _ I won’t keep you talking all night. Thanks for the kreteks, I hope you work everything out. Call me if you need me.”

“I will. Same goes for you, darling. My phone is always on for you, and my door is always open. I don’t care what time it is, if you need me you come. Ok?”

Julia eyes him uncertainly, then nods. She had taken him up on the offer before, showing up at odd hours eaten alive by grief and unable to be alone with it anymore. “Ok. See you tomorrow.” She punches his shoulder affectionately, then heads for the door.

“Good night, Julia. Safe drive, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

~*~

Jaskier puts himself back together during the intervening days. He attends therapy, brings Julia her takeout, and things return to normal at the bar. Sunday morning he rides his bike, but this time he’s sober, more himself. At the end of the night, he pulls Julia to the side as she sighs in exasperation.

Jaskier gives her a sheepish smile, leaning back against one of the counters. “Sorry, I’m not going to keep you long tonight.”

“Yeah? Good, my fish are starting to worry I’m seeing someone new,” Julia cracks. “What’s up?” Her eyes travel to the closet where the bike is and back to him. “Car ok?”

“What?” He looks over his shoulder in the direction she’s indicating. “Oh! No, it’s fine. I just wanted to take a long ride tonight after work, maybe catch the sunrise out south of my house.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s Geralt. I finally decided to call him. I think I’ve got my head on straight and I still wanna do it.”

Julia sucks her teeth thoughtfully. It’s sweet to see him excited, but she worries about his heart, too. He doesn’t always guard it as carefully as he should. “You sure? From what you’re telling me, it doesn’t sound like you’re lookin’ at a walk in the park. He’s married, he’s got a family halfway across the world, he’s in the closet…”

Jaskier sighs. “I know, Julia. I was there, I remember.” 

Julia arches her eyebrow at him but doesn’t comment. 

Jaskier chews his lip. “I know it’s probably stupid, and I know we could break each other’s hearts, but…” he ruffles his hand through his hair. “I don’t meet men like that every day. Besides. I will definitely regret it if I don’t at least see him one more time.” 

Julia rolls her eyes, but a fond smile creeps across her tawny face. “I’ll give you wanting to see him again one more time, you two really should talk. Just try not to be a dumbass, ok? Go slow. You’ve gotta take care of yourself, you’re not twenty anymore.”

The look on Jaskier’s face softens thoughtfully, and he nods. “I know. I’ll try to be good.”

“Good. Where are you planning on taking him? This doesn’t sound like public conversation material.”

“Well… that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I was thinking maybe the best place would be the bar.”

“What, don’t want to use your house?” Julia asks dryly. 

“Nnnoo, uh…” Jaskier rubs the back of his neck, turning red. 

“I get it.” Julia cuts him off with a quick gesture, smirking. “You wanna keep it on the up and up. Don’t you have somewhere else you could meet him though?”

“Mmm… I mean, there are some parks I could take him to, but that feels weird for a private conversation, you know?” Julia nods. Jaskier continues, “He’s staying with his wife at the hotel, and I feel like it would be rude to ask him to kick her out so we can talk. Most of my friends have these teeny apartments so I can’t exactly borrow space from them. The bar seemed like the best place.”

Julia hums, then nods. “I get it. Not like I have a porch I could offer you or anything.”

“Yeah. So…?”

Shrugging, Julia stuffs her keys into her pocket. “Go for it. Just don’t fuck all over the furniture or I’m gonna fire you,” she cracks.

Jaskier laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She might not be able to actually fire him, all joking aside, but Julia has a way of finding truly horrifying tasks to saddle him with. He isn’t about to try her and they both know it. He pushes off of the counter, then digs a faxed receipt out of his back pocket and unfolds it. “Kreteks are on the way, by the bye. Here’s the tracking number.” 

Julia lights up, making grabby hands as Jaskier hands the receipt over. She scans it, then gives a satisfied smile and folds it up to stick in her wallet. “Great. All right, I’m gonna head outta here. Let me know how it goes, ok?”

“As if I’d leave you out of the loop,” Jaskier hums fondly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Am I gonna lose a hand if I try to hug you?”

“Yep,” Julia says with a chuckle. She reaches over and slaps Jaskier’s shoulder companionably on her way out the door. “Good night,  _ mijo. _ ” 

“Good night, Julia. Drive safe.” Jaskier says to her retreating back, smiling. He turns away as the kitchen door swings shut and makes one last circuit of the bar. When he gets outside he closes up; there is a satisfying click as the tumblers lock into place. It has been a good night, and tomorrow is full of possibilities.


End file.
